


Days of Future Past: The Jancy Cut

by genevievedarcygranger



Series: Jane and Darcy [1]
Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Angst, F/M, No Smut, Romance, The Rogue Cut AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-10 20:59:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 36,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13509672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genevievedarcygranger/pseuds/genevievedarcygranger
Summary: Darcy and Jane have survived the Sentinels, so far. Pietro was not so lucky. Logan will still go back to the past, but he must go find Darcy for help instead of Pietro. Jane is MIA. This isn’t the Rogue Cut.





	1. The Future

The Future: a dark and desolate world. A world of war, suffering, loss on both sides. Mutants, and the humans who dared to help them, fighting an enemy we cannot defeat. Are we destined down this path, destined to destroy ourselves like so many species before us? Or can we evolve fast enough to change ourselves… change our fate? Is the future truly set?

On the Blackbird, Charles Xavier searches for other survivors with the mobile Cerebro he and Erik crafted together. “So few of us left,” he murmurs aloud, sounding infinitely burdened by guilt and sorrow. His shoulders showed the weight he carried by their downward slope. The other occupants of the jet said nothing in reply, giving him the silence he needs to concentrate on the mind of others. Never had the bald, wise mutant seemed older than now.

Storm, Ororoe Munroe, flew the plane with her copilot Erik. She had her hair cut drastically short, something she did to keep it out of her face during battles and to help keep clean for hygiene’s sake since they were constantly on the run. Erik Lensherr, like his old friend Charles, also had decades added to his face for every wrinkle. Unlike his friend, he still had his hair, though like Storm it was completely white instead of hoary like the steel grey he use to have. His somber expression held a frown that curved down so continuously it was as if he were made of carven stone. The tension between the remaining X-Men and their former enemy Magneto had greatly diminished to make way for the tension of war between humanity – including mutants – and killer robots called Sentinels. All were united in this common struggle against a greater foe: death and extinction of an entire race. 

The other passengers on this quiet and taut flight sat wordlessly together. There was Zoe Jane Creed, who has not smiled since the day her lover Pietro Maximoff died in a Sentinel attack where they had once foolishly camped out in the open. Her heart was now as hard as the adamantium her bones and wickedly hooked claws were infused with. Her ebony black hair was like how Pietro’s once was, which is slicked back behind her ears out of her haunted face. It was her eyes, once so full of life and now so full of burning rage, that gave her this ghostly demeanor. She is but a shell of the woman she once was. Empty to all the death, but filled to the brim with violence and bloodlust for metal that cannot bleed. 

Next to her was her friend Darcy, one of the few that kept Jane going besides her driving desire for revenge for her fallen lover. Darcy had changed from the war as well, though not as drastically. Her hair was a mess, like some awful mullet mixed with a lion’s mane. She, too, though, is a mess. The glasses she once had framing her amber-orange eyes have cracked many times to the point that they were useless, so she did not wear them anymore. Her eyes were like fire, in a constant strained state to see. Her nails were truly claws now that she could not keep under control anymore; they curved and sharpened to points, at a length as long as an inch so she could tear Sentinels to pieces. Her teeth were completely like Jane’s now, all pointed. Whereas Jane felt fury all the time, Darcy felt something primitive in her that awakened in the survival situation that is her everyday life now. Due to that, her skills as a telepath are more instinctual, and yet are dulled to make way for surroundings. After all, you cannot read the minds of robots.

At Darcy’s side was her lover. She was a luckier than Jane to have an immortal lover as well. Logan looked as he always did and will always continue to look like. The only difference, however slight, was the grey that shot out at his temples towards the contentious points in his iconic hairstyle. That and his eyes were flinty except when he looked at Darcy. When they looked at each other, there was a softness that came only with goodbyes. It was heartbreaking more than romantic for the couple. Like the other men on the ship, he was old. However, like his lover and her friend, he was an immortal. He had seen a lot wars. War never changes, so neither does he – even if this war is so different in its extremity.

Each and every one of them wore the standard yet customized uniform of an X-Man. Even Charles in his futuristic high-tech hover wheelchairs without wheels, wore the protective leather that molded to his skin rather than his trademark suit and tie. Like it or not they were all soldiers in this war of humanity’s survival. 

Darcy had her eyes glued to the Professor’s form, a blur to her eyes even when she squints. Telepathically she listened to what he was hearing across the globe, all the screams and the gunshots and the crying. She felt Logan’s hand come to rest on her thigh in comfort, and she grabbed it to anchor herself to him. If before all of this, Cerebro was too powerful for her mind as a great telepath, than now she would surely break and be lost from her body if she ever attempted it. When Logan squeezed her hand, she turned to look at him. There close distance was a godsend because she could easily see the worry lines crisscrossing his face and the gathering crow’s feet around his eyes. The woman wished they were smile lines as she leaned up to kiss him, but before she could, she heard the best bit of news any of the X-Men have heard in a while. 

“I found them.”


	2. The Mission

They were somewhere in China. Kitty, Bobby, Peter, and a few other new mutants were still alive and safely hidden away from the Sentinels – for now. Their location was somewhere in the mountains in an old, abandoned temple. The architecture was beautiful. Honestly, any bunch of rocks would be beautiful if they hid them from the enemy’s sight and offered the slightest bit of privacy. The Blackbird makes time for self-reflection a group activity rather than a solitary one. 

"Hey kids.”

“Professor, you made it.”

When they finally got off the jet, the first thing Logan did was light his cigar to smoke since he couldn’t do it in a pressurized cabin. Their reunion with their former students and old friends, and they first meeting with new acquaintances and allies Blink, Warpath, Sunspot, and Bishop; was brief and for the most part silent. It would be a while before they all could ever learn to speak normally again; and Darcy desperately wanted to ask when this new development between Bobby and Kitty arose. Peter was standoffish. Once safely ensconced within the temple walls, the purpose of their meeting was made clear. This was another mission, their final one it sounds like. They still had one last chance to make things right and fix all previous wrongs to make a better world for everyone.

Kitty explained to them a new development in her powers. Now she could not only walk through walls, but she knew how to send a person’s mind back in time through consciousness and memories. How the hell she figured out how to do that, Darcy has no clue and she does not even want to know. Of course, the Professor saw this as an opportunity to solve all their problems. However, Kitty shot it down as implausible. His mind would be ripped to shreds by the trip. Surprisingly, Logan was asking a lot of questions, though. Darcy should have known what he was up to – she is a mind-reader – but she didn’t figure it out until it was too late. 

“Whenever the Sentinels attack,” Kitty began, “Warpath spots them… then I send Bishop back to warn us of the attack before it can happen. Blink scouts the exit site… and then we leave before they ever know we were there.”

“Because,” Warpath speaks up, “We never were.”

That’s when Logan’s questions started, “Wait, what do you mean you were never there?”

Ever the professor, Charles steps in to explain, “She projects Bishop back in time a few days to warn the others,” He sweeps his gaze over the crowd of listeners, “of the coming attack.”

Confused, Logan asks, “So she sends Bishop back in time?” He makes eye contact with said man and said woman.

“No, just his consciousness into his younger self.” When Logan’s look of confusion didn’t change he continued, “His younger body.”

Darcy reached out and gently touched Logan’s spine in an attempt to soothe and quiet him. Logan shifted at her touch and said softly, “Wow.” He turned to look at his lover and she smiled weakly at him. All his questions, his newfound curiosity, it was concerning for her.

“This just might work, Charles.” Erik said to his old friend.

This time it was Kitty who asked a question, “What might work?” She had a right to be curious of course, if it involved her and her new abilities at time-travel. 

Then the Professor entered his lecture mode. “The Sentinel program was originally conceived by Doctor Bolivar Trask. In the early ‘70’s, he was one of the world’s leading weapons designers. But he had begun experimenting on mutants,” The room full of mutants swayed at his words, and they knew where this was headed, “Using their gifts to fuel his own research. There was one mutant who had discovered what he was doing.”

 

Erik jumped in and finished. “A mutant with the ability to transform herself into anyone.”

“Mystique.” Peter finally spoke up and said what everyone was thinking quietly to themselves. 

“I knew her as Raven.” Charles admitted, “We met when we were children, grew up together. She was like a sister to me.” His nostalgic tone shifted to one of pain, “I tried to help her but only succeeded in driving her away. She hunted Trask across the world and at the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, after the Vietnam War, she found Trask… and killed him.” Everyone could see in their heads what he was narrating. “It was the first time she killed.”

Bitterly Logan added, “Well, it wasn’t her last.” Logan could remember some of the few he killed, not all of them humans, not all of them guilty. Darcy’s touch on his spine increased as she slowly pressed her knuckles into the knots in the muscles on his back. His agitation agitated her, and immediately he relaxed perceptively at her touch.

“But killing Trask did not have the outcome expected. It only persuaded the government of the need of his program. They captured her that day, tortured her, experimented on her.” The others winced sympathetically in pain, but a few of the mutants who had been lab rats before reacted quite differently. Erik pulled up his sleeve, staring at the numbers the Nazis branded on him like livestock so long ago. Jane cracked her knuckles that made a metallic clicking noise. Logan settled more firmly into Darcy, leaning his weight back on her who supported him with tender love and care. 

“In her DNA, they discovered the secrets to her powers of transformation. It gave them the key they needed to create weapons that could adapt to any mutant power. And in less than 50 years the machines that have destroyed so many of our kind were created. But that all started that day in 1973, the day she first killed, the day she truly became Mystique.” Charles’ tone was reminiscent and sad.

Now Kitty knew what Charles was getting at. “You want to go back there.”

Charles all but said yes and earnestly continued with a sense of urgency that was tinged with desperation. “If I can get to her, stop the assassination, keep her out of their hands, then we can stop the Sentinels from ever being born.”

“And end this war,” Erik continued Charles’ line of thought, “Before it ever begins.”

Kitty looked apologetic, “Uh, I can send someone back a couple weeks.” Both Charles’ and Erik’s faces fell. “Maybe a month.” Their disappointment was tangible. “But you’re talking about going back decades. You have the most powerful brain in the world, Professor, but the mind can only stretch so far before it snaps.” Logan looked thoughtful at that, but Darcy couldn’t see his face from where she was standing behind him. “It would rip you apart. I’m sorry. No one could survive that trip.”

Then her lover spoke up, and Darcy stiffened at his words. “What if someone’s mind has a way of snapping back?” Logan obviously asked the rhetorical question, and all eyes were on him, “What if someone can heal as fast as they are ripped apart?” His inquiry was a leading question; they all knew the answer, and they all knew that they had a plausible Plan B.

“Logan,” Darcy softly seemed to plead. She didn’t say anymore, but then again she didn’t have to. She looked as helpless as she was angry.

“I’ll go.” Jane volunteered. Her resolve was already hardened, and she was itching for a chance to fix things. Something was rekindled within her, perhaps because this was a chance for her lover to live again with her. 

“You can’t.” Darcy felt terrible for smashing her friend’s dreams, but it was not like she was condemning Pietro to die. Jane could not be the hero here. Darcy knew what had to happen, and she did not like it not one bit. “If you have forgotten your history, the Paris Peace Accords for the Vietnam War was in 1973. You, in 1973, would not be able to do this.” Jane deflated and withdrew into herself.

“Why can’t she do it?” Logan asked, ever the curious one. He seemed to be asking a lot of questions tonight.

“She-”

“I was in Stryker’s laboratory, well I guess it was actually Trask’s. I don’t really know. I don’t particularly care either. Because no matter who was in charge, I ended up with these.” Jane held up her claws that slid out with that all too familiar snikt. On edge, she was a spitting mess. 

Logan winced in sympathy at her plight and pain that he remembered only as a nightmare from his own experience. He was sorry that he asked, and so was everyone else, especially Jane.

“Darcy,” Charles began, and they all knew he was up to something, “would you be willing to make the trip?”

Beside him, Erik’s face flickered with emotion. His eyes showed that he understood what Charles was playing at. “You have a history with both Charles and Raven. You know me as well. It would work so much more smoothly to have you, a telepath, convince us of our wrongs as youths.” He elaborated on Charles’ plan. 

Darcy’s face contorted in pain that looked physical instead of what it was – mental and emotional and soul-crushing. “I cannot do it, either,” she despaired. It wasn’t like she wailed, but the anguish in her voice gave it all the volume of one. “My mind is not as it once was. I am scarred and … and weak. I’m sorry.” That is when she looked at Logan again, her face twisting up as she watched the gravity of the situation descend on her lover. Quickly she left the room for a more secluded area to collect herself in. 

“Uh,” Logan was confused, naturally, “I’ll be right back.” He started to leave, but turned back to add a final word, “I will do this. There is just something I have to settle first before I go.” The others looked like they understood, and then he finally left, chasing after his emotionally compromised lover. 

The majority of the others: Jane, Storm, Bishop, Warpath, Sunspot, Blink, and Peter – went outside to prepare for the Sentinel attack they knew was going to come very soon. Charles, Erik, Kitty, Bobby, Darcy, and Logan remained inside to prepare for the oncoming trip. The mission was happening either way.


	3. Before You Go

“Darcy,” Logan started once he found her tucked away into a small nook towards the back part of the temple where it starts to become a cave, “why are you so upset about this? We could go back to the life we once had if I succeed.” He tentatively put his hands on her shoulders, sliding his palms down her arms until he cupped her elbows. “Are you worried that I will fail?”

She finally looked up at him, and when she started to squint he stepped forward so as to not compromise her vision. Darcy liked to be able to see him clearly when they spoke together so as to not misinterpret anything he says. “Oh, Carcajou, my love, I know you will succeed. You always do. Everything you do is nothing short of perfection my love.”

Wryly he smiled at her stroking his ego. It was the end of the world as they knew it, and still she treated him like he was king of the world even in the most tumultuous of situations they found themselves in. He brought his hand to her face. “Then what’s the problem? What are you afraid of?” Her cheek was cradled in the palm of his hand, and his thumb swept across her mouth. 

“Logan, when you succeed, all of life as we know it now will be forever changed from 1973 onward. You will change so much, and how can you possibly know that we will be together again? We found each other once, but you won’t remember me like you do now until this very moment. I will not have ever known you as I do now. You will have saved the world, but our world will be lost.” Her face crumpled and her hands pushed against his chest as she tried to pull away. “It is selfish, I know. But Jane may not get to know Pietro. Our friends may not be our friends. The change of everything will be terrifying because no one will know but you, and you will just wake up one day – today – and it will all hit you in the face that you have been living a life different than the one you know. How can you bear this? You shouldn’t have to bear this! If only I were stronger-”

“Don’t.” Logan stopped her from continuing any further. “Darling, you are getting ahead of yourself.” Once again he brushed his thumb across her bottom lip, and, ignoring her pushing him away, he stepped into her personal space again. The crevice they had wedged themselves in kept her from fleeing. It would have been romantic had the atmosphere not been so desperate and tinged with fear. This was the story of their life now with the Sentinels abroad, wreaking havoc and terror on everyone. “We are just meant to be. We’ll find each other again. How can I ever resist you?” His thumb traced down her jaw, and she looked back up again. “I promise that I will never forget you.”

There was a pause as she contemplated his words. While she thought hard, he pressed his forehead to hers, breathing in her scent. Relaxation was key. So long as he was calm, she was calm. This was a side-effect from the damaged she has sustained as a telepath. The emotions of others threw her off to the point where her emotions were unrecognizable to herself; she could no longer distinguish herself from others at a subconscious level.   
Finally, her amber-orange eyes settled into an emotion: determination. It was a look that still sent shivers down his spine, no matter how silly Darcy thought he was for it. “Your word is enough. But you need a plan for that promise to be kept properly, now don’t you, my love?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Yes ma’am.” Darcy smirked and grabbed at his face as his arms circled around her and trapped her to his hard body. He had effectively chased her sorrows away and assuaged her fears enough to warm her to the idea of sharing a few kisses before he left. Judging by her eagerness, he may be lucky enough to get more than that, too. 

She nipped at his neck hard. “Damn straight, Carcajou.” The raised eyebrow confirmed that she heard what he was thinking. They’ve got some time for that it seems. If not, they’ll make time. Time has to be made to get a few precious joys out of life now in this apocalyptic world.


	4. Make the Jump

They returned to the others quicker than they liked, but time was regrettably short. Just thank God that no one tried to go looking for them. When they returned, Darcy worked with Charles, Erik, and Kitty to work out the kinks in their plan. She had one stipulation to this ordeal and that is for Charles to help her channel her powers as a telepath for just long enough to leave some kind of shield/signature on Logan’s consciousness. “But why?” Kitty inquired, secretly wondering if she could work with Logan’s mind if he had something like that on him.

Darcy turned to look at Kitty with unyielding eyes. “Because when he goes back he isn’t just going to find Charles.” Her eyes swept over her to Charles and Erik. “He will find me as well so that I can help solve this mess in 1973.” When he eyes finally travelled back to land on her lover Logan, there was a strong sweetness that wasn’t there before, the kind of sweetness that comes from shared intimacy. “You can find me. If this is anywhere around the time of Vietnam, my residence is the White House, if you know what I mean.” She winked and said no more, just leaving a hint as a clue to her former location in 1973. 

Logan nodded and addressed Charles. “So I wake up in my younger body, God knows where, and then what?” He stood before the stone slab that he would be vulnerably laying prone on during this mental expedition. 

“You’ll need to go to my house and find me.”

“You mean your mansion.” Darcy amended his statement.

Charles continued as if she said nothing, “Convince me of all this.” 

Logan’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Won’t you be able to read my mind?” He was spoiled by the easiness of not having to explain anything. Words were too complicated to describe feelings and ideas and emotions.

His old friend seemed to smile wryly, half of his mouth twisted upward. “I didn’t have my powers in 1973. Logan, you’re going to have to do for me what I once did for you: lead me, guide me.”

“Help mend his broken heart, Carcajou.” Darcy supplied.

“I was a very different man then. You’ll have to be patient with me.” Charles tacked on.

Both Darcy and Logan scoffed, though Darcy looked more amused than her lover did. He just looked a little frustrated. “Patience isn’t my strong suit.” At that admittance, he shared a look with his lover who only smiled at him encouragingly.  
That is when Erik chose to speak. “You’ll need me as well,” he added as he stepped forward, ever Charles’ right hand man.

“What?” Logan looked over his shoulder at the both of them.

Erik expounded, “After Mystique left Charles, she came with me,” Darcy look irritated, her teeth bared, “and I set her on a dangerous path,” Erik looked at Charles, his face ashamed, “A darker path.” Stronger, he continued, “It’s going to take the two of us-” Darcy cleared her throat with a growl, “The three of us,” Erik amended, “side by side by side at a time when we couldn’t be further apart.”

The Wolverine looked at first at his girlfriend who rolled her shoulders in a shrug, smiling just a little, and then at Charles who nodded, before he sighed, “Great, so where do I find you?”

“Well, it’s complicated.”

Logan shook his head, brow furrowing at all the riddles. Why was no one ever straightforward when it came to talking about the past? Personal histories are always told in stories leaving out important and relevant information and only filled with the juicy bits of half-lies. It was damn frustrating to him. With a heavy sigh, he stretched out on the slab and Kitty took her place at the side his head was one. He tried to get comfortable as she explained the procedure to him.

“Basically, your body will go to sleep while your mind travels back in time. As long as you’re back there, past and present will continue to coexist. But once you wake up, whatever you’ve done will take hold and become history. And for the rest of us it’ll be the only history that we know. It’ll be like the last fifty years never happened. And this world and this war will be over. The only person who will remember it is you. All right, Logan, I need you to clear your head and to stay as calm as possible.”

Immediately he tensed and his eyes snapped open. He started asking questions again. “What? Why? What do you mean?” He was understandably suspicious and little worried about how this operation will work on him.

“If your mind gets a little rocky, it will be harder for me to hold you and you could start to slip between past and future.” Kitty explained the best she could in layman’s terms that he could understand.

“Well, what if I need to get a little rocky?” He continued to ask questions.

A little exasperated, Kitty searched for some good advice to give in the event of that kind of emergency. After all, with the Wolverine, rocky doesn’t even begin to cover his tactics. “Think peaceful thoughts?” she offered.

In the background, Darcy huffed a laugh to herself. Her nerves were shot, and seeing her lover lie before her like a sacrifice to whatever god this temple was meant to worship and serve she was more than a little hysterical enough to laugh at that. Her lover was not known for having a stable mind herself. Of course, she was one to talk.

Logan took Kitty’s advice, nevertheless, at face value. What choice did he have but to believe her? His life wasn’t so much in her hands as his mind literally was going to be. “Peaceful thoughts.” He repeated more to himself than anyone else, and breathed deeply in preparation. “Do you have any good news?”

“Well,” Kitty looked bored, “You don’t really age so you’ll pretty much look the same.”

“You won’t have much time in the past. The Sentinels will find us. They always do.” Bobby told Logan seriously.

“And this time,” Kitty also continued as seriously as her icy boyfriend, “We won’t be able to run. We’ll have no escape. This is our last chance.”

While Logan prepared himself, Charles and Erik whispered to each other with Darcy nervously standing nearby. “Do you really think this can work?” Erik pessimistically asked.

“I have faith in him,” was Charles’ confident response.

“It’s not him I’m worried about.” Erik continued, “We were young. We didn’t know any better.”

“We will now.” Charles firmly answered, and the conversation was put to rest, thankfully for Darcy’s sake. She is anxious enough about the whole situation as it is.

Logan looked around the room at his surrounding friends before his eyes landed on his lover Darcy. “See you all soon.”

“This might sting a little.” Kitty warned before she put her hands to Logan’s graying temples. There was a burst of light around his head, and Darcy had time enough to be reminded on a halo crafted from one of Storm’s lightning bolts before Logan starting roaring in pain. She jerked roughly in shock and then rushed to his side, taking the bottom half of his face in her hands to try and take the pain away any way she could. Desperately, she rubbed her palms over his stubble until it burned and then kept rubbing, on the verge of tears. 

Charles helped channel her feelings into a mental shield with Darcy’s mental signature on Logan’s mind. It did not impede Kitty’s progress at all. The shield covered memories of Darcy from herself, a tricky process that Charles perfected. The signature would help the Darcy in the past trust Logan. Finally, finally, after ages, his yelling stopped and Darcy could somewhat relax once again. He was out of her hands and in Kitty’s. Logan was in 1973 now.


	5. Into The Past

Groggily, Logan woke up with late morning light shining right in his eyes. The waking was slow, his body lazy, and there was a pleasant drowsiness in the air that he has not had the pleasure to experience in far too long of a while. When his eyes finally focused, it was on a green lava lamp. Oh yeah. This was definitely 1973. 

His tactile sensations returned and he finally felt the feminine arm that was slung around his neck. He almost called out, “Darcy,” but no, the arm felt wrong. Darcy wouldn’t drape an arm around him like that and he certainly wouldn’t be facing away from her if that were the case, even if they were spooning. The familiar lassitude was caused by sex, then. Guilt gripped his heart and he carefully plucked the arm away until the arm’s owner withdrew it to herself. 

Carefully he rolled, observing the garish 70s design style, and the waves underneath him told him that he slept on a waterbed. He could almost feel the headache coming on at that. Being naked, he recognized this to be the morning after sex on the water bed and he felt nauseous at the idea of it. He glanced over the girl in his bed just long enough to confirm his suspicions that she really wasn’t Darcy. Darcy wouldn’t sleep in lingerie with him after sex, that’s for sure. He was almost disgusted with himself for sleeping with someone that wasn’t Darcy, but he ignored all of that in favor of answering a few questions. Like where the Hell exactly was he?

When he peaked out the window, he recognized his surroundings to be 1970s New York City. “Holy shit it worked.” Thank Christ he was close to the mansion. That just makes things so much easier for him. He sensed something before he heard a noise, his only sign of warning to start putting on his pants a little faster, before a couple of men burst into the room. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Gwen, get dressed.” Said one of the mob men that seemed to be in charge to the girl on the bed. 

“Who the Hell are you? Hey, I don’t know what’s going on.” Time travel made Logan’s head pound. 

“What’s going on is you’re supposed to be guarding the boss’s daughter, not screwing her.”

“Well, I didn’t sleep with her.” Not that he can remember, but he can hazard a guess.

“No?” said the mobster.

“No. I mean yes, I slept with her many times.” Logan admitted what he thought had happened and what surely did happen. 

“Jimmy!” The woman named Gwen said to Logan sharply. Jane had always called Logan that.

“That wasn’t me. That was the old me. I just got here like 20 seconds ago.” God, what was going on?

“Really? Then what happened to your clothes?” The mobster rhetorically asked.

“My- oh.” Logan looked down on himself standing before them all shirtless. “Would you believe me if I told you that I was here from the future?”

The woman looked at Logan in disbelief as the other men laughed amongst themselves. “Get out of here, sweetheart. We’re going to take care of this comedian.”

Gwen quickly left as Logan disagreed with the gunmen. “No, you’re not. You’re going to give me the keys to your car and some money for gas, or you’re going to wake up in the hospital. Trust me, I know how these things play out.” Logan pulled on his belt and buckled it casually.

“Oh, because you’re from the future?” joked the leader of the armed men.

“No,” Logan continued lightly, “because of these.” He unsheathed his claws and started at them with confusion when he saw that they were bone instead of the adamantium that he was so use to by now. The men were scared by the claws either way and shot at him in defense. Logan grunted in pain and quickly healed, his mutation pushing the bullets out of him. “God, damn it!” He started breathing heavy, his rage building, and then attacked the men. He didn’t care if he killed them or not, but they certainly were not getting up anytime fast. 

That conversation didn’t go over very well at all. He ended up having to get a little rocky, his confusion over his bone claws only increasing his mental disturbance, but quickly he remembered Kitty’s words and started some deep breathing techniques. “Peaceful thoughts.” He reminded himself and focused thoughts of being with Darcy in a simpler time before the Sentinels. 

With businesslike efficiency, he took the car keys and found the admittedly nice if somewhat tacky car. Then with little more of a crank of the engine, he was on his way to the mansion to find Charles. And so his adventure in 1973 begins.


	6. The Old, Familiar Places

Logan drives up to the dilapidated mansion with overgrown weeds and grass in need of a cut, the sign proclaiming the building to be ‘Xavier’s Institute For Gifted Youngsters’ fallen off and lying discarded on the ground. He stares at it wondering when the place went to Hell and why Charles let the place go before he continues to drive up to the door. Obviously some shit has happened and there is only way he is going to get any answers to any of his questions.

He walked right up to the front door and knocked urgently. He was far too impatient to have to wait too long for someone to get off their damn ass and answer the fucking front door for God’s sake. So naturally, he was very surprised when none other than Hank McCoy answered the door to Charles’ mansion. “Can I help you?”

“What happened to the school?” It looks like shit.

“The school’s been shut down for years. Are you a parent?”

Logan scoffs, “Sure as Hell hope not.” That was a hard pill to swallow. He never got the chance to raise any kids with Darcy. Now wasn’t the time to dwell on the past, or future, or whatever, though. “Who are you?”

“I’m Hank, Hank McCoy. I look after the house now.”

Logan was about to say that he was doing a piss-poor job of that, but instead he chose to smile at the information revealed. He found another old friend, someone else who could help him on his mission, none other than Beast himself. “You’re Beast? Look at you. I guess you’re a late bloomer.” He took off his sunglasses and tucked them away in his shirt pocket.

Hank looked nervous in response. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” He tried to quickly shut the door on Logan’s face.

Sensing that to be the young man’s plan, Logan put his hands up and pushed back, not at his full strength. “So where’s the Professor?”

Struggling to kick Logan out and shut the door, Hank groaned through his teeth at the effort, “There is no Professor here!”

“You’re pretty strong for a scrawny kid,” Logan dismissively informed Hank, “Come on. Sure there’s not a little Beast in there?” Playfully he shoved a little harder at the door as if it were a game of tug of war between the two. He liked Hank, but fucking him was also something else he use to enjoy doing.

The scrawny kid only struggled harder in response at Logan egging him on. “No, please not here.” He almost begged.

“Come on. Come on, Beastie…” Logan cajoled in a most teasing tone of voice. Hank only repeated ‘no’ until he finally gave way to Logan’s brute strength as he got tired of playing the game. It looks like the Beast wasn’t going to come out and play after all. He strutted into the mansion, looking around and being bombarded by the familiarity of everything.

Hank chased after him and caught up to his long stride. “Hey! I said the school is close. You need to leave.” 

“Not until I see the Professor.” Logan belligerently argued.

“There’s no Professor here! I told you that.” Hank argued back. He grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back, tugging Logan around to face him.

Only slightly annoyed, Logan started with, “Look, kid, one day you and I are going to be really good friends,” then he socked him one across the face. It’s a good thing this was a time before he got his adamantium skeleton otherwise that would have hurt Hank a lot more than it already does. “You just don’t know it yet,” he finishes before walking off calling for the Professor. It was a mistake to just dismiss the sounds of huffing and puffing behind him. It was a mistake to just assume that Hank was making those sounds over something like a broken nose or whatever. Let it be known that mistakes were definitely made.

Hank beasted out of course and Logan was tossed and flipped around screaming by this acrobatic and blue little monkey of a man with the hairiness of a gorilla and the roar of a bear crossed with a lion. Logan was sprawled across the table with Hank hanging upside down above him from the chandelier when the allusive Charles finally revealed himself. “Hank? What’s going on here?”

“Professor?” Logan hazarded a guess. The man may have a lot of long hair and be wearing pajamas despite it being the afternoon, but he did have that tell-tale crisp English accent only slightly slurred for whatever reason.

“Please don’t call me that.” Logan’s guess was confirmed but it only confused him more. This hippy slob was not only Charles Xavier, but he was also ...

“You know this guy?” Hank interrupted Logan’s thought process.

Charles slumped around with the precarious steps of a drunk – a hung-over drunk. “Yeah, he looks slightly familiar. Get off the bloody chandelier, Hank!” 

Gracefully Hank flipped off the chandelier and landed on the floor beside the table. Logan started climbing off the table. “You can walk?” His thought process continued to think, trying to work his personal timeline out.

“You’re a perceptive one,” Charles poked fun at Logan with a wry smile that would have been charming had Charles not looked so bad, so unclean, so unwell, so drunk, so drugged, so hung-over, so depressed.

“I thought Erik…” Logan trailed off, not wanting to start off on a worse foot than the one he was already on. 

Charles only ignored what he was saying. “Which makes it slightly perplexing,” He continued to say, “That you managed to miss our signs on the way in. This is private property, my friend.” He made eye contact with Kurtz. “I’m going to have to ask him to ask you to leave.” The situation supposedly handled, Charles turned to go back upstairs to whatever he was doing before.

Well, Logan was at an impasse. He figured now would be a good time to broker the news to them both. Hopefully this will go better than the last time. At least, it should, since he isn’t sleeping with either of the man’s daughters or wives or girlfriends or whatever. “Well, I’m afraid I can’t do that, because uh…” How should he phrase this? “Because I was sent here for you.”

Charles plopped down on the stairs, immensely tired. “Well, tell whoever it was that sent you that I’m…” he searched for the proper word to describe his life right now, “Busy.” He finished lamely.

“Well, that’s going to be a little tricky.” ‘Little’ doesn’t even begin to describe it. “Because the person who sent me,” Best to just dive right in, right? “Was you.” Time to get serious.

The man just blinked dumbly. His brow furrowed and there was a flash of the Charles Logan knew across his face at the action of trying to think deeply. “What?” His British accent over rode his drunk slur, sounding like he was sobering up at the somberness of the situation.

“About fifty years from now.” Logan added, not knowing what else to say in response to that broad question.

“About fifty years from now?” Charles repeated and Logan interrupted, “Yeah.” Charles quickly continued without pause, “Like, in the future, ‘fifty years from now’?” Again Logan responded quickly enough with a simple, “Yeah.”

“I sent you from the future?”

Logan’s brow lowered into a scowl. He knew how ridiculous this sounded, but it was true, damn it all. “Yeah.”

His old friend just stared at him hard as though seriously contemplating the truth of that. Then his face broke as he barked a laugh harshly. “Piss off.” He finished hard.

Logan frowned at that. Then he sighed, “If you had your powers, you’d know I was telling the truth.” He narrowed his eyes at Charles, standing his ground and refusing to budge up and leave.

Charles looked shocked at that, “How do you know I don’t have my pow-” He trailed off, voice nearly breaking and cracking. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I told you.” Logan said paitently. 

“Are you CIA?”

“No.” Now his patience was starting to wear a little thin.

“You’ve been watching me?”

Thinking of how Darcy would handle this if she were here, Logan decided to reveal the truth even if it meant spoiling the future that hasn’t happened yet. “I know you, Charles. We’ve been friends for years.” Slowly he circled up to where Charles sat on the staircase. “I know your powers came when you were 9. I know that you thought you were going crazy when it started, all the voices in your head.” God, this story was so similar to the one Darcy told him so long ago. “And it wasn’t until you were 12 that you realized all the voices were in everyone else’s head. Do you want me to go on?” He would hate to have to continue bringing up these painful to bear memories, but he would if it got his point across. 

“I never told anyone that.” Charles all but admitted what Logan said was so very true.

“No, not yet, but you will.” Logan gently continued, well as gently as he possibly could to an old friend that isn’t Darcy. 

“Alright, you’ve piqued my interest. What do you want?” Charles finally conceded to Logan.

“We have to stop Raven. I need your help. We need your help.” Finally his mission is revealed and he has gained their trust. Logan is making great progress.

Unfortunately, Charles got very emotional at that admittance by Logan. “I think I’d like to wake up now.” He stood and walked away, into another room. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

“Raven?” Hank asked, and Logan turned to look at his other old friend again. “What does she have to do with this?” Logan watched as Hank reverted from his blue Beast form to his nerdy human form. Then he and Hank followed after Charles as he explained their future situation to them the best that he possibly could. He wasn’t as elegant as Charles or as loquacious as Darcy. 

So what you’re saying is that they took Raven’s power, and what? They weaponized it?”

“Yep.” Couldn’t have said it any better himself although evidently he did in such a way.

 

“She is unique.” Hank told Charles with just the slightest bit of interest.

“Yeah, that she is, Hank.” Charles sounded like he knew the real meaning of what Hank meant and was so sympathetic towards it.

Logan continued, blissfully unaware of what they were secretly talking about, “In the beginning the Sentinels were just targeting mutants, then they began to identify the genetics in non-mutants who’d eventually have mutant children or grandchildren.” He couldn’t help but think if his and Darcy’s children would have beautiful mutations, if they would be mutants at all. It was all too painful to contemplate any further, so he powered through. “Then they started targeting everybody. Many of the humans tried to help us, but it was a slaughter, leaving on the worst of humanity in charge.” Reluctantly, he revealed, “I’ve been in a lot of wars. I’ve never seen anything like this. And it all starts with her.” 

Charles sat on the couch, legs spread out wide, with a drink of Scotch in his hands. “Let’s just say for the sake of…” he shifted continuously as he touched a hand to his forehead, warding off an incoming headache at the knowledge of everything, “The sake that I choose to believe you, that I choose to help you. Raven won’t listen to me.” He laughed bitterly before he continued on to say, “No, her heart and soul belongs to someone else now.” 

Charles’ wistfulness was also envious in a way that Logan thought he understood given his knowledge of the future. “I know. That’s why we’re going to need Magneto, too.”

“Erik?” This time Charles really did laugh.

“You do know where Erik is?” Hank asked, not amused like Charles.

Charles laughed harder before he got up and started to leave. “He’s where belongs!” His tone was cruel now.

“You’re just going to walk out?” Logan followed Charles as far as the doorway.

“Oh, top marks. Like I said, you are perceptive.” Charles sarcastically replied before he swayed away with his drink, steps uneven. He was smiling at least.

You want perceptive, Logan will give it to you with encouragement. “The Professor I know would never turn his back on someone who’d lost their path. Especially someone he loved.”

Charles stopped at those words, halfway up the stairs, and then turned and started walking back to Logan. There was a dangerous look of crazy in his eyes that only came with being hurt and having nothing to lose. “You know, I think I do remember you now. Yeah, we came to you a long time ago seeking your help. And I’m going to say to you what you said to us then: Fuck off!”

All patience gone, Logan snapped and angrily grabbed a hold of the lapels of Charles’ atrocious bathrobe. “Listen to me, you little shit!” I said go fuck yourself! But, no, no, he can’t remember. That wouldn’t help anyway. “I’ve come a long way, and I’ve watched a lot of people die. Good people. Friends.” He thought of all those he has lost from Pietro to Hank to Rogue to Jubilee to Kurt to Wanda to Jean to Scott to Forge to so many more, too many to count and too many to name off the top of his head. “If you’re going to wallow in self-pity and do nothing, then you’re going to watch the same thing. You understand?” He released him and Charles stumbled back.

All Charles said in reply to all that is, “We all have to die sometime, mate.” Then he turned and left, finally making it all the way back upstairs again, disappearing from sight.

While Logan watched him go, stewing in anger, Hank spoke up again. “I told you there’s no professor here.”

“What the Hell happened to him?” Logan asked the question that burned to him. This Charles was a horrible man, nothing like the one he knew. In fact, this Charles reminded Logan a lot of his younger self, too, back when he use to wander around from bar to bar on his motorcycle searching for answers at the bottom of shot glasses and bottles. Both of those angst youths had something in common: selfishness.

Hank explained how Charles got to his low point the best he could. “He lost everything: Erik, Raven, his legs. We built this school, the labs, this whole place…then, just after the first semester, the war in Vietnam got worse. Many of the teachers and older students were drafted. His girlfriend left him.” Girlfriend? Logan wondered at that. “It broke him. He retreated into himself. I want to help do something so I designed a serum to treat his spine derived from the same formula that helps me control my mutation. I take just enough to keep myself balanced, but he takes too much. I tried easing him back, but he just couldn’t bear the pain, the voices. The treatment gives him his legs, but it’s not enough. He’s, he’s just lost too much.”

Suddenly everything made sense and Logan could sympathize with him not from his own personal experience but just from what he has had to go through with his lover Darcy since the start of the war. Telepaths experience things differently, and Darcy had shattered at the pressure of the tension and climatic battle. She reverted to a wild feral state that he could relate to. Charles does not have that ability, so he fell to drugs. Both Logan and Darcy tried to do that with alcohol, and she did admit to him that she tried drugs but they held no long-term effects on her due to the healing mutation she had. Coping with everything broke Charles as it did Darcy. War does not change, but it changes people. Logan is no exception now. 

“I’ll help you get her.” Charles reappeared at the top of the stairs and started to climb down. Logan was glad that he didn’t have to do anymore work. Convincing people to join him on his quest was harder than expected. “Not for any of your future shite, but for her.”

“Fair enough.” Logan would do the same for Darcy in any situation.

“But I’ll tell you this.” Charles wasn’t done yet. “You don’t know Erik. That man is a monster.” Well, buddy, so is the Wolverine if you can believe it. “A murderer.” That, too. “You think you can convince Raven to change, to come home? That’s splendid. But what makes you think you can change him?”

Logan has to pull out the big guns now. He knew that Raven wasn’t Charles’ Darcy but Erik was. “Because you and Erik sent me back together.”

Hank came back out and laid some maps on the table. So be it if they had to have Erik, they have to break him out first before they went after Raven all together. “The room they’re holding him in was built during the Second World War, when there was a shortage of steel. So the foundation is pure concrete and sand. No metal.”

“He’s being held a hundred floors beneath the most heavily guarded building on the planet.” Charles summed up the Pentagon.

“Why is he in there?” Logan curiously asked. This seemed pretty extreme, but Magneto use to be a villain after all. 

“What, he forgot to mention?” Charles smiled and laughed.

“Uh, JFK.” Hank whispered to Logan out of the side of his mouth.

To say Logan was surprised was an understatement. “He killed…” He trailed off because he knew he didn’t have to say it. Logan was surprised, but he wasn’t doubtful. He could believe that Erik was capable of such a thing.

“What else explains a bullet miraculously curving through the air? Erik’s always had a way with guns.” The conspiracy theories surrounding JFK’s assassination all made sense now in Logan’s mind. Lee Harvey Oswald had nothing on Erik Lensherr; he’s just the fall guy. “Are you sure you want to carry on with this?”

He put up his hands. “Hey, this is your plan, not mine.”

“We don’t have any resources to get us in.” Hank informed Logan.

“Or out.” Charles added. “It’s just me and Hank.” And Charles doesn’t even have his powers, just a hell of a lot of money. 

“I know someone.” Logan figured now would be a good time to go get Darcy. After all, they would have to go to D.C. anyway to get to Erik inside the Pentagon. Darcy would be a quick stop along the way at the White House, whatever she was doing there. “Yeah, she’d be at the White House now, she told me so. She is a telepath, too, and she’d be willing to help us out. I don’t know how to find her at the White House once we get there, though.”

Hank looked over at Charles, but neither asked who exactly it was. “Is Cerebro out of the question?” Charles’ look down at the floor at his shoes was the tacit answer to his question.

“It’s a shame you don’t have internet.” Logan sighed. 

“What’s internet?” Hank asked him.

Logan said nothing, knowing he has said too much. Instead he quickly moved on before either men could dwell too long on that. “Nevermind, let’s go. I got a car outside. Well, it’s stolen. We’ll have to get a rental.” Quickly, he left and Hank and Charles only had time enough to exchange looks before they went after Logan. What had they gotten themselves into?


	7. Familiar Faces

The car ride to Washington D.C. was way too damn long and Logan, who despises flying with every fiber of his being, desperately wished for the Blackbird again. They didn’t talk to one another a lot, especially not about the future or any real plan other than getting into the Pentagon. Neither Hank nor Charles asked who was at the White House. Mostly they listened to the radio with its ‘70’s hits rather than each other. All the Beatles’ music reminded him of Jane, and Logan felt homesick for the future if that was even possible. Charles drove and Logan told him not to get use to it because from now on he’s driving. Charles may not be physically handicapped now while he is on the serum, but he was still a terrible driver. 

Once they got to the White House, they parked a block or so away. As they approached the White House, Logan squinted through his sunlight filtering sunglasses at the surrounding crowds around the gate. “Oh.” He felt stupid.

“What, what is it?” Hank asked and his eyes were narrowed to slits. He couldn’t wear any sunglasses since he had regular eyeglasses and Logan was reminded of Darcy and he felt even more stupid if that was possible. Charles looked at Logan through his sunglasses, waiting for an explanation with Hank.

“She’d be protesting. She’d be one of them.” Logan nodded to the crowd of peace-loving hippies. “That’s why she’s here.” Logan started scanning the crowd of hippies in their colorful clothing and with their long hair braided and adorned with flowers and carrying their assorted and varied picket signs protesting Vietnam and Nixon. 

“Just who exactly are we looking for?” Charles asked a little frustrated, tired of being kept ignorant in the dark about Logan’s plans. It was at times like these that he missed being a stable telepath.

Logan looked at Charles; his lips pressed in a flat line, and said nothing to him. He just started walking among the hippies, looking closely for his Darcy. There was not a doubt in his mind that he wouldn’t be able to recognize her anywhere as more than a face in the crowd. 

Charles and Hank exchanged looks with one another, Charles a bit pissed. Hank could only shrug in response. “I guess we just follow him.” They proceeded to do so and Charles mumbled under his breath something about pricks.

Walking among the hippies who smelled dirty and like weed, Logan wondered how Darcy would react to seeing him. She wouldn’t know him, but would she like him? Would she find him attractive? Would something about him attract her to him? How would she look dressed like one of the hippies? Would she be very different? Would he like how she looks? Of course he would, that’s a stupid question. She is always beautiful to him. Too bad he can’t find her by scent, but in this crowd he doesn’t particularly want to.   
Hank and Charles followed at least two steps behind Logan, and all three of them ignored the hippies sloganeering and begging for change, both monetary and cultural. Then Logan heard a familiar voice.

“Would you like to make love instead of war, baby-killer?” Logan looked down at his feet at the woman will long wavy hair like a bush or a willow tree’s branched dangling around her face, her familiar and sweet, beautiful face. It was the lack of glasses that made Logan almost pass her by, but those amber-orange eyes even without the metallic frame were still only hers, only Darcy’s. Yes, even what she said sounded just as flirty as Darcy is, but she also sounded so … mean. She never talked to him that way before, not even when she was really mad.

“Are you rejecting my offer with silence? Come on, baby-killer, I know you find me beautiful. What the Hell is wrong with you? You get your cock shot off in the war, baby-killer?” Logan frowned at those words. This was Darcy, but she was not his yet. That was his mistake. The flowers in her hair were charming, but her hair itself looked like she hadn’t bathed in a while. The rainbow tie-dye dress wasn’t as flattering at her normal clothes, but she was still beautiful. Something was different though. Her eyes looked passed him, and Logan was hurt. Then she said with warmth that wasn’t there before, “Charles?” What.

She climbed off the ground where she had sat and stared up at Logan, and she brushed pass Logan in favor of Charles. She was bouncing, she never did that around Logan before or rather after this, or however the Hell time travel works. Wrapping her arms around Charles’ waist she smiled at him and chattered excitedly, “You’re walking, baby! Oh, that’s wonderful. Look at your hair; it’s beautiful grown out like that. I dig your style. Please tell me your legs aren’t the only parts of you that work now.” She pawed at his belt buckle and Logan can remember her doing that to him before. “I’m dying for good cock that isn’t lame off the Mary Jane, and I’m not just talking about the plant here.” Then she kissed him and Logan’s hands were balled so tightly into fists that he had to think peaceful thoughts in order to keep the claws from popping out in public. 

Charles allowed her to kiss him and got a little amorous himself, before Darcy quickly pulled away. “What’s wrong, Charles? You aren’t talking to me.” She ran her fingers through the stubble gracing his cheek, and Logan’s jaw ticked at the memory of her doing that to him. This was going to be very hard. 

Darcy suddenly went very quiet, staring hard into the blue of Charles’ eyes, her fingers on his temples. Hank hovered awkwardly in the background, and Logan’s jaw was so tight that his teeth hurt. “Oh, Charles, I’m sorry, baby.”

In response Charles roughly pushed her hands away, and Logan took a step forward to intervene. “If you were so sorry why did you leave me when I needed you the most?”

“What?” Logan looked between his girlfriend and his old friend, neither of which are either of those things in this timeline yet. When they continued to stare at each other, he turned to Hank in his desperation for an answer.

“Darcy use to be Charles’ girlfriend.” Hank’s brow furrowed. “I thought you were from the future, so you should know these things.”

“The future? The baby-killer?” Darcy broke her eye contact with Charles and glanced between Hank and Logan. She didn’t look impressed with either of them. “What have you been smoking? It must be very good.”

“Never mind any of that, now. Let’s go somewhere more private to talk.” Charles took Darcy’s hand and jerked her along to follow. Logan was still steaming mad, but Darcy didn’t mind the rough treatment. She just flounced along after him, tossing her hair over her shoulder and bouncing again. Why was she bouncing?

“Are you not wearing a bra?” Hank asked in surprise. All four of them stop and the men all looked down at Darcy’s low hanging cleavage. Logan was just ready to gear up and punch Hank again when Darcy spoke. 

“I burned all my bras.”

“Why? I thought that was a myth of the Feminist Women’s Rights Movement.” Hank was so confused, and Logan was still ready to knock his lights out.

Darcy’s catlike eyes slid towards Charles, though what she said was addressed to Hank. “I had nothing else to keep me warm at night. Besides, it makes it easier for men to grab my breasts and get me naked.” That didn’t sound seductive as much as accusatory.

“Alright, let’s get out of here.” Charles and Darcy walked hand in hand together, Hank and Logan following after. Logan looked ready to snap, displaying his anger at the others instead of his hurt at Darcy’s abrupt treatment. 

Once they got far enough away from the crowd of hippy protesters and they were walking down a more isolated part of the street away from the White House with its tourists, they started talking again on their way to the car. “So I read your mind, Charles. You don’t have to tell me anything. I understand, and I’m sorry. I read your mind, too, Hanky-Panky. You have a clever little plan, but then again you always were more brain over brawn. So Charles is the pretty face, and Hank is the mastermind, so that makes the baby-killer your muscle.” She looked back over her shoulder at Logan who was frowning at her. “Why is it that I cannot read your mind, huh? You have a head trauma from the war?”

“Why do you keep assuming he’s a soldier?” Hank curiously interrupted. 

Her response was flippant. “I know the look of the man who has killed or seen killing. It leaves a haunted weariness on their face that only fellow ancient immortals like myself have.” Suddenly she tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, and Logan quickly moved forward to catch her since she released Charles’ hand and no one else was going to do it. She may not be his girlfriend now but he loves her and taking care of her is what he is supposed to do. He’s not just going to let her fall on her face because she keeps referring to him as baby-killer, even if it does annoy him immensely. 

Logan pulled her against his chest until she regained her feet. He noticed she was barefoot. That had to be uncomfortable on the hot sidewalk. She was only released from his grasp once he deemed that she was okay. Then she jerked around to confront him. “Why are you helping me, baby-?”

“Please, don’t call me that, Genevieve.” He pleaded softly in low, gruff voice. He didn’t want to be vulnerable in front of her, but nothing could have prepared him for her behavior towards him. She’s always teased him, but loved him all the same. This was just too much for him.

She looked surprised that he knew her given name. “How do you know me by that?” Before she could respond she looked at Hank for a tad too long and at Charles for an even longer moment that made Logan’s skin itch with jealousy. “So you are from the future, Logan.”

“Yes.” He answered her, and then they all continued walking abreast. 

“Tell me, in the future-”

“I can’t discuss too much with you. I’m sorry.” Logan knew if he got started talking to her, that he would not be able to stop or tell her no. Then she would know too much, and he didn’t want to have to spoil the surprise for her. 

Darcy looked faintly annoyed, but then casually shrugged it off. Logan swallowed hard at the bouncing movement again, and he knew he wasn’t the only one who noticed it, which only increased his rocky temperament a couple of notches. “So you need me to break Erik out. Groovy. I never thought I’d help my ex-boyfriend get in touch with my other ex-boyfriend, but there is a first time for everything.” She caught Logan’s eye and winked. 

All Logan could think is that Darcy has fucked every man here but Hank, and how awkward is it that he needs his future girlfriend’s help to reunite two of her ex-boyfriends. He chanced a glance at Hank who look a little empty faced, and thanked God that Darcy didn’t date him either.

“Okay, I got the plan from Charles and Hanky-Panky. You don’t have to explain anything to me, Logan. Just leave everything UP to me.” Well, at least she was flirting with him again, although by the way she looked at Charles, Logan knew it wasn’t the same and it burned him. This was going to be a difficult prison break to accomplish after all. The increased bounce in Darcy’s step as she pulled ahead of them all only confirmed Logan’s thoughts as he caught both Hank and Charles glance down, and they were not looking at her bare feet that’s for damn sure. Logan groaned, and then they all climbed in the car together. The heist begins.


	8. Pentagon Breakout and Makeout

At the Pentagon; Logan, Charles, and Hank joined a tour group with Hank blending in expertly under the guise of a tourist with a fanny pack and a stupid hat. Darcy had disappeared from their sight as soon as she entered the building, already under own disguise of invisibility with mind tricks. For a time they walked with the Pentagon Tour Guide and her group, listening until they can break away. “Built in 1943, the Pentagon is the world’s largest office building, housing more than 25,000 military employees and stretched out over six million square feet.”

A little boy piped up, “Where’s the bathroom?” To which a little girl who can only be correctly inferred and assumed to be his sister loudly informs everyone, “He always needs to pee!” There was laughter, and Logan and Charles saw their chance to make a smooth exit while Hank stayed, starting to fiddle with the little gadget he had stowed away in his fanny pack to mess with the security cameras by filtering in live TV broadcasts.

“Well, lucky for you, you’ll have plenty to choose from. The building was constructed during the segregation so…” the female Pentagon Tour Guide’s voice gradually faded out as they ducked downstairs heading towards the kitchen. They ditched their tourist passes by throwing them away in a trash can. Continuing further down and further in, they did not say a word to each other, which was a good thing, otherwise Logan would start cracking skulls. 

Meanwhile, down below where the boys were currently heading, Darcy walked in the Pentagon’s kitchen completely unnoticed. She used her telepathy to create the illusion that she wasn’t there, which was easy to do since most people weren’t paying attention to their surroundings in favor of cooking; and the guards who are supposed to be aware of their surroundings were not expecting to see her, so they did not in fact see her. Easily she followed after a guard carrying a lunch tray into the elevator where she lulled him to sleep and took the tray from him. She didn’t bother trying to steal his uniform because it would be ill-fitting and she didn’t have the time. She’ll just have to switch from being invisible to being viewed as the guard she just put to sleep. Easily said and done easily enough as well since the other guards were expecting to see him and not a hippy intruder. 

The elevator doors opened and she walked out carrying the tray in front of her like she owned the place. Darcy bounced down the hallway, confident in her abilities and concentrating hard on keeping up her charade until she reached the door that Erik was behind. Quickly she ducked inside and the door closed after her smoothly. So far there wasn’t a wrinkle in the plan to be seen. 

Dropping her illusion, she flounced over to the glass floor that Erik was encased in like the interesting bit of male specimen that he is. He wasn’t looking at her, so she took the napkin from the tray, kissed the corner, and then dropped the tray down in his cell to give him a bit of warning. Erik looked up at that and when he saw Darcy he climbed to his feet. She smiled at him and blew a kiss before she dropped down to the floor, getting to work. 

Extending out her claws to their full length, she jammed them in the glass, ignoring the glass splinters she gained for her trouble, and started carving a hole big enough for him to climb through. She managed to get a jagged oval of glass cut out that fell to the floor with a shatter that set off alarms, and then she quickly ripped away more of the glass to ensure he could get out. Erik reached up to her, and she grabbed his hand and forearm to help pull him out of his little prison. 

Once out of the hole, he kissed her and she kissed him back. It was his first kiss in 10 or so years after all. He only broke it off to say, “In three seconds, those doors are going to open and 20 guards will be here to shoot us.”

“Oh, Erik, honey. Don’t you know me at all?” Darcy winked at him and then turned towards the door expectantly. It slid open and a little less than 20 guards started to trickle and then pour in when the door was opened completely. She only waved her hand at them, and they all dropped to the floor in a deep sleep like the dead. “Let’s go.” They hurried to the elevator, carefully picking their way over the sleeping bodies.

When they were inside the elevator and on their way up to the kitchen again, Erik started kissing Darcy again. It’s been lonely trapped down there without even an ounce of metal. It had also been so long since they last saw each other. This time it was Darcy, though, who broke the kiss. “Wait, why were you down there, Erik?”

“For killing the President, apparently.” At least Erik was frank and candid with her.

“That’s a shame.” Darcy rolled her shoulders and shrugged, Erik watching the movement with the fascination of a sexually starved man. Then they started to kiss again, her pressing her face to his and him gripping her by her upper arms to hold her heaving front to his chest. 

Inside the kitchen, the fire alarm has been set off by Hank and his technology causing the kitchen staff to leave, but the guards remain and get soaked. Logan and Charles enter underneath the water spray, and Charles tries to get rid of the guards by talking since he can’t use his telepathy. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this is a Code Red situation. We are evacuating the entire floor so that my associate and I can, uh, secure the prison.” He glanced at Logan who looked deeply unhappy at getting his hair wet. Charles didn’t seem to mind the water.

The officers were not convinced to do anything Charles’ English accented voice told them to do. “Who are you?” one of the guards asked without any hesitation.

Charles, however, did hesitate. “We’re special operations, CB…FB-CID. Perhaps you didn’t hear me when first I spoke, but it is imperative that you understand we’re in a complete lockdown situation. We have to get you to the third floor-”

Logan, meanwhile, looks increasingly more frustrated than before with Charles’ unsuccessful talking, and eventually gets so fed up that he grabs a frying pan and beats the guards unconscious with it with little more than a roll of his eyes and a battle cry. When he finishes with that bit of nasty business, he looks up at Charles and flatly deadpans, “Oh. I’m sorry. Were you finished?”

The man only looks slightly disturbed. He opens his mouth to say something, but then changes his mind and decided not to. Closing his mouth, he bends down and searches the guards for the elevator key. Finding the key, he uses it.

In the elevator there is a ding announcing the arrival at the kitchen floor, but neither Darcy nor Erik stop the activity their mouths are so committed to. She grabs at his face, running her fingers through his short hair and short five o’clock shadow. He runs his hands down her back towards her rear.

Back in the kitchen, Charles tells Logan, “I’m sorry, I’m just not very good with violence.” Just then the elevator doors open and Erik and Darcy do not pull away fast enough because both Logan and Charles saw what they were doing. 

Erik looks pleasantly surprised and happy all the same. “Charles?” Charles looks mad and with a shout he punches Erik hard across the jaw. Erik falls to the floor and Charles grips his hand. Darcy is torn between which of the two to help, though when she sees that Logan had menacingly stepped forward she raises an eyebrow at his behavior and chooses to help the man who is strewn on the floor. Erik rubs his jaw. “Good to see you, too, old friend. And walking. ” He says to Charles.

“No thanks to you.” Charles snaps in an ugly tone of voice. Both men stand and face each other less than a foot apart. Charles, the shorter of the two, is full of anger, but Erik looks at peace with the situation.

“You’re the last person in the world I expected to see today.” Erik told Charles calmly.

“Believe me, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to. If we get you out of here, we do it my way. No killing.” Charles had no problem bossing his much more intimidating old friend around. 

“No helmet,” Erik said amiably enough, “I couldn’t disobey you even if I wanted.” That sounded more flirty than friendly if Darcy was any judge of that can of salacious behavior. Logan also so that to be a little too friendly, though he is glad the exchange does not involve Darcy in any way. Looking back he couldn’t tell if Charles was more upset at Darcy for kissing Erik or at Erik for kissing Darcy. Interesting.

“I am NEVER getting inside of that head again.” Charles firmly informed Erik, who looked a little disappointed at that statement. “I need your word, Erik.” Erik searched Charles’ sopping wet, bearded face and blue eyes before he finally if somewhat reluctantly nodded his consent.

With that handled they all turned towards the door to leave and stepped off the elevator that closed behind them. Then suddenly six guards entered the kitchen and they all aimed their guns at them. “Nobody move! Hold it right there!”

Erik swept his level gaze over them, unimpressed. He stood there getting wet, and none of them raised their hands in the air. “Charles.”

An officer spoke again, “Don’t move. Hands up, or we will shoot!” Still, nobody complied.

Erik spoke again, “Freeze them, Charles.”

Charles looked scared. “I can’t.”

“Hands up!” the officer imperiously yelled his order at them Erik only heaved a deep sigh, and immediately broke his promise to Charles.

The metal in the kitchen started to shake as Erik manipulated it, and the officers pointed their guns at them. Charles screamed, “No!” Putting his hands on Erik’s shoulders he pushed and pulled to try and make his old friend stop. Logan popped his claws, preparing for trouble and getting ready to get rocky with it.

Darcy raised her hand and snapped her fingers. All the guards fell to the floor snoring before they could fire their weapons. “Boys, boys, please. Don’t be over dramatic. Your lovers’ quarrel is unnecessary.”

Both Charles and Erik simply stared at Darcy, and it was like their previous kisses with her today meant nothing. They quickly exited the kitchen, and Darcy puffed out a sigh. Story of her life, being ignored by men except when they are lecherous and not in love with her. This is why she left them both. Logan, however, just had his mouth twitch into a very small smile. “Thanks, darling.” She only glanced down at his bone claws and shifted her shoulders. Her answering smile showed her gratitude in return, and she winked at him before she followed after her ex-boyfriends cum gay lovers. Logan thought he must be dreaming to see her shake her rear at him. He shook his head at the crazy thought and sheathed his claws, bringing up the rear. The prison break was a complete success, and now the gang is all here and back together. Now was the time to ship out to Paris and stop Raven from ruining everything. That should be easy right?


	9. Leaving on a Jet Plane

At an airport, Charles rented a private plane for Hank to pilot them to the Paris Peace Accords. Logan went ahead and boarded, getting a much needed to drink to calm his nerves after the exciting events of the day. Hank, Charles, and Erik stayed outside and said goodbye to Darcy. She decided on her own at the very last minute not to go. “There is going to be some sexual tension like you wouldn’t believe between Charles and Erik, and I don’t think having the ex-girlfriend there would help the situation.” She secretly whispered to Hank.

“What about Logan?” Hank murmured back while Charles and Erik were occupied with arguing with one another. “I thought you were starting to like him. He also said we needed your help with this.”

“I did my part, Hanky-Panky.” Hank grimaced at the nickname. “Besides, Raven does not care for me at all. It’s a huge web of romances that I get just get all tangled by simply existing. Also, I don’t think my flirting with Logan would be good to do in front of my ex-lovers anyway. They may love each other, but they are always jealous of their ex-lovers. It’s all too complicated, so I’m removing myself from the equation, you understand.” Almost as an afterthought she added, “If I was going to flirt with Logan, I wouldn’t be able to fuck him on that tiny private jet anyway. There would be an audience.” Hank looked uncomfortable, but she only winked at him with an evil smile of all teeth.

“Darcy, thank you very, very much.” Charles finally addressed her, saving Hank from having to reply to that bit of information that she shared.

Both Charles and Erik gave her a hug, and Erik added a handshake. “You take care.”

“Enjoy your trip to Paris, my boys. It is the city of love, you know.” Darcy flirted at them.

Erik boarded the plane at that comment and then tried to take the newspaper from Logan. Logan only jutted out his claws to pin the paper to the table. Erik looked only slightly impressed, but a bit more disgusted. “Imagine if they were metal.” Logan’s sneer was very pronounced and had nothing to do with the fact that Erik had kissed Darcy earlier. Nope, not at all.

Outside Charles tossed the keys to the rental car at Darcy. “Do me a favor and return it for me.”

Darcy’s cleavage caught the keys and she plucked them out dexterously. “Oh, go and fuck Erik up the ass, Charles.” She playfully told him off. At that comment, Charles and Hank boarded the plane. Darcy laughed and drove off, going at far too fast a speed. 

Back onboard the plane, Erik asked Logan, “Where did they dig you up?” He took a sit smoothly, his gaze steady on Logan.

Logan’s answering gaze was just as steady as he almost condescendingly told him, “You’re going to find this hard to believe, but, uh, you sent me. You and Charles. From the future.” His tone was far too smug and now Logan knew why Darcy always looked so damned satisfied with herself. Being a telepath and being from the future, you know everything and it is great to lord over others’ heads. Erik looked so damned confused, though, so Logan settled in, ready for a long talk full of questions. 

When Charles and Hank walked past him to the cock pit he looked around for Darcy. “Where is Darcy? Where did Darcy go?”

Hank called back from the pilot’s chair, “She decided not to come since she thinks it would be a bad idea to have her around Raven.”

Charles nods, conceding Darcy’s point. “She’s right. She and Raven do not get along.”

Logan doesn’t say anything, but instead sits back in his chair heavily. Just like that she is out of his life again. He never had a chance with her, but still it hurts that she left him without saying goodbye. This is going to be an insufferable plane ride.


	10. Tensions Rise with the Altitude

During the flight, the silent tension is thick inside the plane with Charles staring coldly at Erik. Hank is out of the picture, piloting the jet to Paris. Logan is brooding, sulking at thoughts of Darcy. Finally Erik releases the question that seemed to have been burning urgently inside of him for so long. “How did you lose them?”

“The treatment for my spine affects my DNA.”

Erik is baffled by that explanation. “You sacrificed your powers so you could walk?” He would never give up his ability, his gift that connects him with metal, over something like a physical disability. 

Charles looks to be on the verge of tears. “I sacrificed my powers so that I could sleep.” Suddenly his mood changes on a dime to anger, “What do you know about it?”

Now Erik is serenity and Charles is rage, two sides of the same coin. “I’ve lost my fair share.” He ambiguously answers him.

In response, Charles laughs coldly, “Dry your eyes, Erik.” He says with mock sympathy before he goes back to being angry, “It doesn’t justify what you’ve done.”

Powerfully, Erik whispers, “You have no idea what I’ve done.” He sounds dangerous, like a shark that smells blood.

Charles’ beautiful blue eyes are swimming with tears, brimming to the point of overflowing. “I know you took the things that meant the most to me.”

“Well, maybe you should have fought harder for them.”

At that Charles stands in his anger and starts to shout, “If you want a fight, Erik, I will give you a fight!”

Fluidly, Erik stands though not in such a snit as Charles. Logan from his seat imperiously yells at them, “Settle down! Sit down!” 

Erik holds up a hand and says to Logan in a normal speaking voice, “Let him come.”

Charles comes and grabs Erik by the front of his shirt. His rage explodes out of him in tears and shouts. “You abandoned me! You took her away and you abandoned me!” He sounds devastated, heartbroken.

In reply, Erik’s rage is a slow build of frost and cold. “Angel,” he recites the names progressively louder and angrier, “Azazel. Emma. Banshee. Mutant brothers and sisters, all dead!” In his anger, his powers manipulate the metal in the plane, specifically speaking the plane itself. It affects the flight stability and puts them all in danger. “Countless others experimented on! Butchered!”

Desperately at the front of the plane at the controls, Hank calls back in plea, “Erik!”

“Where were you, Charles?! We were supposed to PROTECT them! Where were you when your own people needed you?! Hiding! You and Hank! Pretending to be something you’re not!”   
His voice shook at the power of his rage, and in the background Logan is freaking out, his fear of flying progressively getting worse until it spirals out of control. His breathing erratic he grabs at his surroundings in fear. Charles lay sprawled out before Erik in an erotic pose, also cowering in fear at his old friend’s might and anger. Again Hank calls, “ERIK!” He is trying so hard not to crash the plane into the ocean.

Finally, Erik relinquishes his control of the plane to Hank, allowing him to regain control and continue to fly it steady. “You abandoned us ALL!” he finished to Charles, and then his temper cools after the flare. Charles quickly absconds to the privacy of the cockpit with Hank.

Logan finally calms down, his breathing and heart beat normal again. How would Darcy handle this? “So, you were always an asshole.” He conversationally begins.

Erik works his jaw as he turns to face Logan. “I take it we’re best buddies in the future.” He sarcastically responds.

“I spent a lot of years trying to bring you down, bub.” Logan casually tells him while he lights his cigar.

“How does that work out for you?” Erik sounds like he knows the answer. Logan all but gave it away after all.

“You’re like me.” Logan take a puff of the cigar. “You’re a survivor.” He removes the cigar from his mouth and looks around at the mess Erik made in his temper tantrum. “Do you want to pick all that shit up?” Darcy would have been proud.


	11. Catching Up and Making Up

A few hours into the flights, Charles finally revealed himself again. When Logan caught sight of the sky outside the jet’s windows – which he desperately tried not to, he didn’t need a reminder that he was flying above the Atlantic Ocean – it had darkened to the point where only pinpoints of stars shone out from the pitch black night. Erik, meanwhile, had not talked to Logan any further but had found a chess set. Now he saw his chance to use it since Logan’s discouraging look quite clearly told him that Logan would not play with him. Using the chess set as a way of apology for being an aforementioned asshole, Erik places it on the table in front of Charles. “Fancy a game? It’s been a while.”

A while does not cover the lifetime Charles has aged in the decade since he has last seen and played with Erik. Up until that point he had been avoiding eye contact with Erik, but now he had no choice. “I’m not in the mood for games, thank you.” He politely declined, making his point clear that Erik was not quite forgiven yet. 

From where Logan was seated he watched with hooded eyes. He was very tired, and he was wary to let the two old friends talk lest they succeed in destroying the plane this time. However, the lull of the engine’s hum soothed him to sleep and he was pleasantly drowsy from the many shot glasses of whiskey he downed to calm his nerves. Something deep inside him assured him that sleep was fine at this point. Maybe it was his internal clock telling him it was very late, or the jet lag was starting to settle in. Perhaps it went deeper than that, like a time travel lag. In his heart he liked to believe that Darcy was with him in some way, most likely standing guard over his prone body. With her, he could find sleep, even if he wasn’t so much in her arms as he was in her sights. Either way, he sighed and stopped thinking long enough to dream of first nothing and then of his Darcy, whom he so desperately missed.

As soon as Logan closed his eyes, Erik poured himself a drink. He savored the rich, smokey flavor of it on his tongue, eyes closed in bliss, before he finally swallowed his meager mouthful. “I haven’t had a real sip in ten years.” He ruefully admits, and then switches to a much more serious and somber topic. “I didn’t kill the president.” 

Charles does not seemed surprised at the change in conversation, and he doesn’t shy away from Erik’s heavy, steady gaze. “The bullet curved, Erik.” His tone displayed his disbelief tacitly.

“Because I was trying to save him. They took me out before I could.” Erik was earnest and remained standing. His towering height had not intimidated Charles and intimidation tactics did not work when one was trying to appear honest and innocent.

“Why would you try to save him?” Charles still was not convinced.

Erik leveled his gaze with Charles’ clear blue eyes, for now devoid of tears and redness. “Because he was one of us.”

This was surprising information for Charles, though he quickly recovered from his shock at Erik’s candidness and frankness. “You must think me so foolish. You’ve always said they would come after us.”

With that settled and his name cleared, Erik brought the conversation back around to present events. “I never imagined they’d use Raven’s DNA to do it.”

However, his old friend Charles did not want to discuss the future’s bleak and dismal possibilities so much as he wanted to dig up and relive the past he had so firmly been stuck in the past couple of years he has mourned the loss of his closest friends and family, lovers and loved ones. “When did you last see her?” 

The light that came to Charles’ blue eyes at the mention of Raven was like a blue flame, intense. There was no possible way Erik could avoid this discussion now, he trapped himself in it by bringing up Raven, the source of so much strife between them. He almost sighed his answer. “The day I left for Dallas.” He finally took his seat since he was no longer on trial as guilty until proven innocent.

“And how was she?” Charles sat forward in his seat, eager for some information on her.

Emotionlessly, Erik took the point of view of her as a Mutant Sister in their Righteous Struggle against Humanity. “Strong, driven, loyal.” He was proud.

“No,” that wasn’t what Charles was looking for, “How… how was she?”

Ah. Now Erik understood. The emotions he had staved off until then flooded him now and he struggled for the proper words to explain his heavy and strong feelings. “She was…we were…” He paused and looked up at Charles who was waiting a bit impatiently, blue eyes bulging. “I could see why she meant so much to you.” He lamely finished. There were some things between them that he couldn’t share with Charles. “You should be proud of her, Charles. She’s out there fighting for our cause.”

“Your cause.” Charles corrected. His voice had hardened, but his eyes reflected his almost maternal concern. “The girl I raised, she was not capable of killing.”

Erik’s temper flared. “You didn’t raise her, you grew up with her. She couldn’t stay a little girl forever. That’s why she left.” In more ways than one Erik insured that Raven took a mighty leap into adulthood. He wasn’t going to tell Charles that, though. There wasn’t a need to bring up something private between Raven and him.

“She left because you got inside her head.” Charles gritted out between his teeth.

Now Charles was the one caught in a verbal trap. “That’s not my power.” Erik reminded his old friend. He didn’t need to say that that wasn’t his power anymore, judging from Charles’ offended look. “She made her choice.” He said with finality that shouldn’t be argued with.  
Still, Charles argued with him all the same. He was very good at that. “But now we know where that choice leads, don’t we? She’s going to murder Trask. They’re going to capture her, and then they’re going to wipe us all out.” His head shook at the violence of the tactics that ultimately ended in failure, death, and extinction.

“Not if we get to her first.” Erik reassured Charles, consoling him with all the comfort a proverbial hand on his hand would have. “Not if we change history tomorrow.” The parental symbolism ended with the grandiose in that statement, but the grandiose died with the softness in Erik’s next words. “I’m sorry, Charles.” He finally apologized to his old friend. “For what happened, I truly am.” 

The tears reappeared in Charles’ eyes and Erik was frustrated at the sight of them. He couldn’t ask why he was crying, though. When they had first met, Erik did most of the crying anyway. The emotional stability had flipped. Now Charles was the vulnerable one. “What about Darcy?” his old friend asked with no small amount of hesitancy. 

Erik tilted his head down, his brow flat over his eyes. His old friend was wading into dangerous waters again, and Erik was the shark smelling blood in the water. It was bad blood between them over yet another girl, one where they shared no tenderness for as family but as lovers. “What about her?”

From where he sat in the deepest of sleep, Logan was roused by the growl in Erik’s voice. It was almost as if he sensed Darcy’s name being brought up in the conversation. Don’t put it past him to do that. Secretly, he opened his eyes just a smidge enough to see the other two men. He kept his breathing deep and even. This definitely concerned him in some way.

“Don’t be coy, Erik. Or obtuse. It doesn’t suit you.” Charles played with the drink in his hand. “I saw you two on the elevator. What did it mean to you?”

Sitting back in his chair, Erik thought of his reply and carefully constructed it in his head. He had to tread easy lest their conversation end in another shouting match. Nobody wanted that. “I haven’t had a real kiss in ten years.” When he saw Charles’ teary blue eyes narrow defensively like a rankled mother hen, he knew that answer wouldn’t suffice. “You know we were once intimate, even before we met.” Erik explained, “She was the first friendly face in so long, in a decade. Darcy was rescuing me despite everything.” Despite you, Charles.

For the life of him, Charles didn’t know why he asked his next question so bluntly. “Did you stop to think that she was still with me? Because the last you saw of either of us, she was with me.” 

“Well, judging by her response to my – the kiss, I took it that she was not with you. A lot can happen in ten years, you know.” Erik was too casual, and it came off as too defensive. “Is she still with you? Before today, that is.” He turned the questions back on Charles.

“No.” Charles answered bitterly. “She left far too soon after you and Raven did. The woman, Moira, drove a wedge between us. As did Raven. And you.”

“And other things, I’m sure. Other people are not the only sources to blame.” Erik sounded as stern as a father.

“Yes.” Charles was properly shamed. “Did you know she greeted me with a kiss? That she was perfectly happy with helping us break you out of prison?”

Erik narrowed his eyes. Where was this line of questioning going? “What does that have to do with anything?” His voice was low, and he was confused.

“I don’t know.” Charles honestly admitted, looking frazzled. “What do you think all this means?” 

“She’s a complicated creature,” Logan almost snorted, very tempted to break his cover and Erik’s nose. He didn’t have to, though. Charles gave Erik a look of disappointment. “Woman.” He amended. 

“That she is, Erik.” And Charles’ tone to Erik was the same one he used with that exact phrase being spoken to Hank about Raven previously. Now Logan understood. This was all so complicated who loved who, but with Darcy it was a very easy list to keep. Erik, Charles, and Logan loved her; she loved all of them, excluding Logan to his extreme disappointment, in return. Hank had no real relationship with Darcy and vice versa. Raven, finally, despised Darcy for the history they shared with the men in their life. It WAS a good thing she did not come along after all. Why did it all have to be this way?

With that all settled, Logan drifted back into his sleep, chasing after the dream figure of Darcy he crafted from memories. She was the one who loved him, after all. The men at the table seemed to have reached an unspoken conclusion to let her go. Darcy can decide who she wants, but both Charles and Erik know who they want. Charles finished his drink and set it aside. He looked down at the chest set, shifting in his seat with briskness that came from getting down to business. Moving on, he addresses Erik in a much lighter tone. “It’s been a while since I’ve played.”

The flirtatious response came all too easily to Erik’s lips. “I’ll go easy on you. It might finally be a fair fight.”

When Charles looked up at him, he didn’t look like he had been crying. “You have the first move.”

Erik looked down at the chess board and with his powers of metal manipulation, he magnetically moved one of the pieces gilded with silver plating forward. Charles put his hand to his mouth, and focused his attention on the board with a concentration that wasn’t there before. All of Erik’s attention was on Charles with predator eyes, hungry eyes.


	12. Everything Goes Wrong

In Paris the next day, which just so happened to be the day of the Summit Meeting, diplomats from all around the world arrive at the Hotel Royale. It’s a historic day as it’s the official ending of the United States’ military involvement in Vietnam. At the airport, they have already landed and rented a car to travel to the Paris Peace Accords. This time Logan is driving with Erik in the front seat. Charles and Hank sit in the back. All except for Hank wear sunglasses. For this special occasion, Erik wore a purple fedora with matching clothes. He looked quite dapper to Charles, but Logan only rolled his eyes at the ridiculousness of it. That wasn’t any way to blend in to choose such an outlandish color, but that was the style of the ‘70’s.

An hour before the Summit was due to begin, they arrived at the back entrance. Erik used his power to tear down the gate and fling it at the security guards, trapping them unconscious to the walls in the makeshift prison he built impromptu. Quickly they climb the stairs and head towards the proper room they disclosed not from one of the information kiosks, but by following the screams. They all could correctly hazard a guess at what could possibly cause such a commotion.   
By the time they arrived, it was just on time. Raven in her full blue and naked glory was posed on top of the table with men knocked out around her. She had a gun pointed straight at Doctor Bolivar Trask’s head. Before she can pull the trigger, both Erik and Charles call to her, “Raven!”

Surprised by their appearance, Raven’s gaze is torn away from Trask to the door way where the four men appear. Her hesitation gave Colonel William Stryker on the floor just enough time to shoot his taser gun at her. She gasps at the quite literal shock and falls flat on the table. Like a concerned father figure, Erik uses his powers to pull the tasers off of Raven and throws them back onto Stryker. Like a concerned mother figure, Charles goes to comfort Raven as she recovers from the taser shot and shocks. “Raven, Raven?”

Slowly Mystique turns her head to him. “Charles?” She is in a state of disbelief that is felt as a physical shock and emotional shock. It would almost be funny, if it weren’t for the pain.

“We’ve come for you, Erik and I, together.” Charles whispers to her, and he sounds so maternal and motherly. It was like when divorced parents find their truant and troubled child who ran away from home.

“I never thought I,” It is a struggle for Mystique to speak as she needs to catch her breath and she is also overly emotional, “I’d see you again.”

Meanwhile, Logan cannot bear the sight of such a tender and touching scene. He looks away to the man convulsing on the floor do to the taser’s shocks. When he sees William Stryker, he is taken back through a vision where a much older but still recognizable version of this man is injecting the adamantium into his body. 

Logan’s personal compromise is unnoticed by Charles, who is heartbroken by Raven’s condition. “I’m going to keep you safe.” He soothes. “I’m going to keep you out of their hands.” He promises.

Simultaneously, Erik is having what some might call a ‘Come to Jesus’ moment, where he realizes that everything can be prevented if he kills Raven. It isn’t an easy decision to make, but he decides it all the same. Again he uses his power to grab the gun that had fallen to the floor earlier when Raven had dropped it. Unflinchingly, he aims it at her. Raven notices. “Erik?” She questions, scared and confused.

At her fear, Charles looks behind him and sees Erik. “Erik, what are you doing?” He sounds horrified as he tries to conceal Raven, using his body as a human shield. 

“Securing our future.” Erik explains. “Forgive me, Mystique.” He begs without begging. “As long as you’re out there, we’ll never be safe.”

Hank finally speaks up as well, “Erik?” He thinks he knows what Erik is about to do but he cannot be completely sure because that would be completely moronic, right? And Erik is no moron, right?

Evidently not as he is not stopping what he is doing. The gun is not being lowered. Raven doesn’t try to plead mercy from Erik. She knows that when he has his heart set on something, when his eye is fixed on something, when his mind is put up to the task, nothing can stop him. That’s just the sheer force of his will and the magnitude of his determination. He believes he can do anything, so he does everything. “Use your powers, Charles. Stop him.” She has moved on to someone else for help.

Erik’s jaw ticks, but he doesn’t even blink. He answers for Charles, “He can’t.”

At that statement, Raven realizes the gravity of the situation. Adrenaline pumping through her, she runs for the window and jumps out of it, breaking through the glass. Erik was just about to shoot the gun, but Hank playing the hero throws himself at Erik, causing the gun to fall but a shot is still fired all the same by Erik magnetically pulling the trigger with his powers. The bullet is guided by Erik’s hand, narrowly missing Charles’ head – that would not be the first time – and follows Raven out of the window. It hits her in the leg as she falls to the cold, hard ground waiting beneath her. 

While all that drama was unfolding, Logan went into a fit of distressing, tortured by flashbacks of what has happened to him but what is only yet to come in this timeline, because it hasn’t happened yet. It was like an attack of PTSD that made him completely unaware of his surroundings; it was all in his head, after all. The power it had over him made his knees weak in the worst way possible. He was knocked back against the wall, breathless and yet at the same time breathing heavily. This all was causing a rift in the future.

~In the Future~

Kitty was having trouble keeping Logan under control. He was getting too rocky for her to handle. “He’s slipping! He’s slipping back! I’m losing him!” She panicked.

Darcy, who had not moved from Logan’s side like some morbid vulture or creepy gargoyle, desperately grasped at his hand, but he jerked them away from her touch. The jerk held all the power of a bitch slap across the face. While Kitty wrestled with keeping her fingers connected to his temples by the glow of her power’s white light, Darcy clasped his hairy cheeks in her hand and bent over him, whispering urgently under her breath what she has always said to him during one of his many but infrequent night terrors. “Carcajou, my love. Please, it isn’t real. I’m real. I love you, Logan. Please. Please. I love you.” 

~ In the Past ~

Fully visible to the crowds in the street, Raven rises to her feet after her fall and turns herself into one of the bystanders, a black woman with a magnificent afro. Inside the hotel, Hank turns into his Beast form and Logan, still in distress, extends his bone claws as he has another vision of Stryker. “Stryker!”

In his mind he can hear him laughing over him, “Someone will finish what we started, Wolverine! One day!”

It set him over the edge and he started slashing at the air in defense.

~ In the Future ~

Wolverine’s adamantium claws slash through the air. In the process, he dislodges Darcy from standing over him by slicing right through her. Completely caught off guard, she stumbles away momentarily hurt, though, more emotionally and mentally than physically. His unrest unsettled her so much already, but the attack he did to her wounded deep in her heart that his claws narrowly missed by inches. Upset not because this is the first time he has stabbed her in his sleep disturbed by a night terror, but because that has not happened in a while and certainly not since the war with the Sentinels has started; Darcy clutches her cuts that have already stopped bleeding. Her instability caused her to be more upset than normal at these kinds of things, which is why she was unable to act fast enough to save Kitty from also getting slashed by Logan’s sharp claws as well. She screamed in pain. Magneto was the one who had to act. He used his powers to fix Logan’s metal skeleton to lie flat on the slab of stone. “Restrain him,” he ordered mostly to Bobby. 

That’s what snapped Darcy out of her stupor and she assisted Bobby to do as Magneto commanded, mentally berating herself for her moment of weakness. Once that was done and the bonds were tight enough to hold, Magneto relaxed his mental magnetic grip slightly, though not completely. Darcy retook her place by Logan’s side, except this time she climbed up beside him. Her hands were pressed to his chest, her eyes staring with love deprivation and starvation at his unhappy face. She so desperately wanted to help, but there was nothing she could do. This helplessness tortured her, but not nearly as much as Logan’s memories tortured him. 

~ In the Past ~

Erik floats down from the window and watches Raven limp away, still in her human bystander form, the bullet still imbedded in her leg. Erik uses his power yet again to pull Raven towards him, specifically by the point of metal he buried with her. She shifts back into her mutant form as he pulls her, the pain too much for her to concentrate with. “No! Erik!” She screams through her pain. Mercilessly, Erik uses his power to pull the bullet out of her leg. 

Inside the hotel, Logan looks around him with confusion. His brow is furrowed deeply on his forehead. “Where am I?” he asks.

Charles, who is not really paying attention to Logan as he is looking out the window where Erik has left from, stupidly asks back, “Huh?”

“How the Hell did I get here?” Logan asks as he rises to his feet.

Not picking up on what Logan was really asking, Charles distractedly answers, “What? You came to us.”

“Who are you?” Logan questions.

Now Charles is forced to look at Logan. He admits, “Charles.” The answer is apparently not good enough for Logan because he grabs Charles by his lapels, shaking him slightly like a ragdoll in his grasp. “Charles Xavier!” Charles adds as if that could add further clarification. 

Logan sounds suspicious. “I don’t know you.” He does not release his hold on Charles.

“Huh?” Charles asks again. He doesn’t understand what is happening. Too much is happening. What is going on? If he was still a telepath, he would be able to know. 

Behind Charles, Logan sees over Charles’ shoulder Hank rise up now fully transformed into his blue mutant form as the Beast. “The Hell is that?!” He shouts in a tone that sounds very much like fear.

Hank tilts his head at Logan, angry. However, Charles calms him, “Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah. I can deal with this, just go. Stop Erik!” Hank leaves out the window, the same way everyone else has left. Somewhere during all this, Trask has escaped through the doorway, and Erik stole some kind of tape of Trask’s before he left.

Outside the hotel, Raven looks pleadingly at Erik as he hovers the bullet above his hand. He points it at Raven. “Erik!” She gasps.

“I’m sorry.”

“Erik…” is all she can say. The word ‘no’ can’t even pass past her lips in little more than her shaping the letters rather than her voice giving the word power. Suddenly, Hank jumps down onto Erik from the window and tackles Erik into the nearby fountain.

Back inside the hotel, Charles is talking Logan down the best he can, trying to grasp at words to explain the situation to him, the situation he himself doesn’t even really fully understand. It’s best to just tell the truth, right? “You’re Logan. That’s Hank McCoy. I’m Charles Xavier. You spent the last couple of days with us.” The truth doesn’t seem to be working with him. Perhaps a believable lie? “You’re on acid.” Logan looks at him at that. “Somebody gave you really bad acid. Yeah?”

Back to Hank and Erik, they are fighting in the fountain. As Hank forces Erik’s head under the water, Erik uses his power to bring the metal decoration rods in the fountain around them, including the surrounding cars, towards him. This causes the crowd to panic and gives Raven a chance to escape by blending into the crowd. Then Erik manages to free himself from Hank’s gasp by getting metal ornaments in the fountain to grab Hank and pull him off, restraining him.

In the hotel room, Charles assures Logan, “Just hold on tight. We’ll get through this together.” Doesn’t that sound familiar?

~ In the Future ~

Kitty is still trying to keep Logan’s mind in the past, but she lost her place and she has to find it again. Bobby notices her struggling hard to breathe, she’s wheezing, and then he sees her wound. “Oh, my God! Kitty!” He runs to her and examines the bleeding cuts. “She’s wounded pretty bad!” 

“Put some damn ice on it! Pressure, Bobby, pressure!” Darcy hisses and she doesn’t even look up. She doesn’t have to. She can’t. Logan always cuts deep and his claws do not catch on anything but themselves, but on other adamantium. The blood wafts into her nostrils, tasting metallic on her tongue. It causes her to have to fight her animal-like instincts. The tiger within her wants to find the source of the blood and kill it, play with it, eat it, something. This feeling is hard to fight, but her humanity isn’t gone completely yet. Being here with Logan was anchoring her to this plane of existence. He needed her here with him. With that in mind, her hands roved up to his neck and she felt his pulse start to calm. The steady rhythm of the thump-thump, thump-thump calmed her immensely. 

~ In the Past ~

Stryker manages to get the tasers off of him, finally. As he goes to escape he turns back and notices Logan’s claws before running off. Logan watches him go, still confused, jaw hanging open, and he pants.

Outside Erik tries to look for Raven who has transformed into an old man. Not being able to see her, Erik goes off. The remaining bystanders capture Hank in his Beast form on camera. In response, he gets angry at being on display like some kind of circus freak. He roars and yanks free, running away and frightening everyone. 

~ In the Future ~

Kitty manages to get Logan back on track. She looks at Magneto and the Professor. “I got him.” 

Darcy uses that as her opportunity and she links her mind to Logan before anyone can stop her. Now she can see everything he sees, just as Kitty can. She cannot really interfere or control him – he isn’t even aware that she’s there – but at least with this she knows just what the Hell is going on now. 

~ In the Past ~

Logan suddenly recognizes Charles with his next breath. “Professor?” He questions, and he sounds like a lost child. Inside, Darcy’s heart is breaking. Her body actually cries tears. 

Charles chuffs a laugh in relief. Even if he didn’t like being called that, at least he knew that whatever episode Logan was having was over now. “What happened to you?” He asked with concern.

In response, Logan just shook his head. It was all too much to explain, and when he tried to think about it, he couldn’t. There was no dwelling on something he was clearly trying to block out. Somehow it was as if his mind was protecting him from the all too real memories that inspired many of his night terrors. “I just saw someone who’s going to bring me a lot of pain some day.” That was all he could explain. He looked around, noticing people have disappeared, important people. “Where’s Raven?”

“Gone.” Charles simply answered.

“What?” What the Hell could have happened? How long was he gone? How long was he out? What the Hell happened to him? What could possibly have happened while he was unaware of his surroundings? The situation could not have gone south so fast, could it?

“We have to get out of here!” Charles pulled Logan along and they left. Outside they saw the crowd in a panic. Logan stopped just long enough to put on his sunglasses to blend in and avoid the sun’s bright rays. Then they lost themselves in the crowd, disappearing. Oh, he felt terrible for disappointing Darcy. Darcy, however, could not give a rat’s fat ass. She only cared for his safety because she knew he would make things right again. There was time still, yet, to save the future.


	13. You Cannot Run From What You Are

Charles, Hank, and Logan leave Paris that night as quick as they can. They return to Charles’ mansion. Mere seconds after they get home, Charles suddenly falls down. “What happened?” asks Logan, concerned.

Hank goes to help Charles to his feet. “Come on, up.” He ignores Logan’s question for now in favor of helping his friend. He knows exactly what is wrong with Charles, and he was going to have to fix it. 

“Why can’t he walk?” Logan persists.

“He needs his treatment.” Hank explains. It suddenly hits Logan that as Charles is losing his ability to walk, he will start to regain his telepathic powers as well. Charles clutches at his head in pain and starts to moan, proving the point. “It’s okay.” Hank tries to soothe. “I’ll make it stop. I’ll get it.” He runs up the stairs to get the injection. Charles looks on in distress, leaning against the wall and sitting heavily on the floor. His breathing in uneven, eyes wide, and he clutches at his ears as if that can stop him from hearing the voices.

Logan is stuck, not really knowing what to do. He cannot help aleve Charles’ pain. Something inside of him, though, a voice like his conscious tells him to say something. He is inexplicably reminded of Darcy, so he tries to say what he thinks she would say. “Hey. Hey. Pull yourself together. It’s not over yet.” Funny, that didn’t sound so callous in his head.

Charles looks at him, and Logan just knows that he is reading his mind, though not on purpose. “You don’t believe that.” 

“How do you know?” Logan already knows the answer, but that is beside the point.

“As these go,” Charles points to his legs, grabbing at them, “this comes back.” He points to his head, pressing his fingers to his temple and forehead. “They all come back!” He raises both hands to his ears, shutting his eyes against the white noise and tilting his head back against the wall behind him. 

Again something inside Logan pushes him to do something. What exactly he doesn’t really know for sure. “Look,” he starts. It is a good start. “I’m… I’m still here. She’s still out there.” Darcy – no, not Darcy. Though she is, but Raven. Raven is the key here. “But we need your help, Charles. Not like this. I need you. We can’t find Raven. Not without your powers.”

Suddenly Hank comes back with the injection. “Here. I added a little extra cause you missed a dose.” He gives the needle to Charles. He sounded so damn proud of himself for being a drug dealer and enabler to Charles addiction.

“Charles.” Logan said in warning. He stares hard at his old friend, but makes no move to step forward.

Charles preps himself for the needle, pulling up his sleeve and flexing his arm. He squeezes his hand repeatedly, but looks up at the sound of Logan’s voice. He’s just about to inject himself, when he stops for some reason, head cocked to the side as if he heard something. He sighs, and decided against going through with it. He puts the injection down.

“Thank God, Charles.” At the top of the stairs appears Darcy. All the men turn to look at her. She’s dressed in more respectable clothing, less like a hippy than before. Her clothing was still colorful, but in the late fashionable way, and she had a brown leather jacket on as well. Looking like she has bathed, her hair was also cut short, but still fell about her face in charming and artistic ringlets. She is also finally wearing a bra. “As soon as I left you, I felt guilty. So I came back to the mansion.” She plucked at the hem of her short dress. “I found some of my old clothes,” she admits. Then she cups her breasts and ruefully adds, “And a few of my better bras, though they fit snugly now.” Darcy drops her hands and her playful, flirty act. “A good thing I came back, too. You have fucked up, royally, my dear.”

While she climbs down the stairs, Logan looks up at her as if she were a godsend. She practically was. To him she was the very picture of an angel descending from Heaven to mingle with the mortals, even if she wore the evil smirk of temptation that only a sex demon would wear. “Darcy.” He sighs, so in love with her. 

Once she reaches the bottom of the staircase, she walks right past Logan, snubbing his affection. Darcy kneels at Charles’ side, quite a feat in her tight, short dress, and looks deeply into his eyes. They are having a moment and Logan despairs internally. Though, something else inside him is raging against this, but he thought he was past the stage of rage. 

Charles breaks off his moment with Darcy by putting a hand on her arm. He turns instead to look at Hank. He begins with, “Hank, do me a favor.” He blinks. “Would you help me to my study, please?”

Without any qualms, Hank agrees easily enough. “Alright.” He helps his friend stand and together they walk over to his study. Darcy follows closely after, and Logan is right on her tail. He feels awful being reduced to trailing after her like a lost and lovesick little puppy; but that is pretty much what he was, for a lack of a better term, or rather, label. Hank opens the door to Charles’ study’s closet. “Are you sure about this?” He asks.

“Absolutely not.” Charles briefly glances at Darcy before his eyes lock on the wheelchair where Hank is also staring. Everyone did look at the wheelchair, but now Darcy was watching Charles very closely. What she couldn’t feel was Logan’s eyes glued to her. So the pining begins, but it feels like the mission just started.


	14. Cerebro

Charles, now in his wheelchair, Logan, Hank, and Darcy are down in the secret labs now. They make their way towards the entrance to Cerebro. “When was the last time you were down here?” Logan questioned as they shortened the distance.

“The last time we went looking for students.” Hank’s answer was upfront.

 

Charles’ answer interrupted Hank’s and was far more philosophical and deep. “A lifetime ago.” 

The doorway to Cerebro scans his eyes and his face in an x-like pattern. “Welcome, Professor.” It greets and then opens for him. 

They enter inside, making their way deeper in towards Cerebro. Hank turns on the equipment with ease. “Raven’s wounded,” he reminds Charles, “She won’t be moving fast.”

Charles only picks up the helmet that connects him to Cerebro, and blows the dust off of it. “These are muscles I haven’t stretched in a long time.” He admits to them. Then he puts the Cerebro helmet on his head, and instantly he sees and hears the call of other mutants. It overwhelms him. “God!” The frantic call of the mutants start to really get to him and he loses his focus. They spin around him, red holograms screaming and crying out in pain. Their grief consumes him. The spin gets faster and faster progressively accelerating in pace.

The observers observe, in fear and in shock. Darcy’s chest heaves, and she places her hands over her heart and they crawl up to her head. As a telepath she couldn’t fathom this. Even with something like Cerebro that could channel her powers, she would never attempt to spread her mind out so thin over so vast a distance. The red glare reflected off Hank’s glasses as he watched his machine slowly start to malfunction with Charles still connected to it. Logan, in order to not get so nauseous and throw up in front of Darcy, focuses his gaze on Charles. He chooses to not see the room spin, but to see Charles start to slowly spiral out of control himself. “Charles!” Logan and Darcy call together, and Darcy puts her hand on Charles’ shoulder.

The touch snaps him out of it. Suddenly not being able to handle it, Charles causes the Cerebro equipment to break down as he yells in pain. He is lucky he doesn’t get electrocuted, but the power shuts off. Angry and upset, his emotions scattered and shattered, he rips the helmet off his head and places it on the control board heavily.

Awkwardly Hank excuses Charles’ behavior. “Charles, it’s alright. I’ll just go and check the generator.” He quickly turns and leaves after that, running.

Logan, Darcy, and Charles now left alone together, Charles snaps at Darcy, “Get out of my head! I can’t handle that right now.” Darcy’s eyes shutter close, and Logan realizes that she is wearing glasses again. She must have left them here at the Mansion and found them again when she came home. Home. Home was whenever he was with her. 

Shaking his head to clear it of distracting thoughts of Darcy, he focused on what was important right now. The mission was important, as well as Charles’ mental health. Logan begins to ask leading questions. “It’s not the machinery, is it?” 

Charles stutters, “I can’t do this, my mind…” He tries to make excuses.

Logan isn’t having that, though. “Yes, you can.”

“It won’t take it.” Charles argues. His panic caused his heart rate and his breathing pace to increase. 

“You’re just a little rusty.” He assures his old friend, steadfastly ignoring the woman he loves.

“You don’t understand.” Charles’ voice quavers. “It’s not a question of being rusty. I can flip the switches. I can turn the knobs, but my power comes from here. It comes from…” He trails off as he touches his head and then goes to point to his heart. “And it’s broken. I feel like one of my students: helpless. It was a mistake coming down here. It was a mistake finding Darcy. It was a mistake freeing Erik. This whole thing has been one bloody mistake!” With shaking hands he rolls himself away from the control board. He can’t bear the sight of it. Darcy docilely follows, but Logan chases after them. “I’m sorry; Logan, but they sent back the wrong man.” 

Logan softly begs Darcy, “Can you give us a moment?” She doesn’t say anything, but she does comply with his request and leaves. It gave Logan’s heart a twinge that caused a grimace on his face. Once she is out of sight, Logan reveals the truth to the Professor. “You’re right. I am.”

Charles stops at the door, and Logan catches up to him. “Actually,” he continues, “It was supposed to be you. But I was the only one who could physically make the trip.” He thought of Jane, who desperately wanted to avenge her lover, and he thought of Darcy, whose mind would rip as easily as the Professor’s despite her healing ability. “And uh… I don’t know how long I’ve got here, but I do know that a long time–” He stopped himself, “Actually, a long time from now,” he bent down to be eyelevel with Charles, placing his hands on either side of Charles’ wheelchair. Effectively and essentially, he trapped the handicap man to his chair where he couldn’t even roll away from him if he wanted to. “I was your most helpless student, and you unlocked my mind. You showed me what I was. You showed me what I could be.” Charles searched Logan’s face for the truth and instead found infinite patience. “I don’t know how to do that for you. You’re right. I don’t. But I know someone who might.” At Charles’ confused look, he invites, “Look into my mind.”

The man in the wheelchair starts shaking his head, his long brown hair whipping about his face. “No. No. You saw what I did to Cerebro. You don’t want me inside your head.”

Unimpressed, Logan assures him with no small amount of humor, “There’s no damage you can do that hasn’t already been done, trust me.” The mirth is short-lived. 

Ever so carefully, Charles touches his fingers to Logan’s head at his temples and enters his mind. He sees Logan’s memories of Stryker experimenting on him, all the deaths he has witnessed, all the murders he has committed, so many wars, and Darcy. Darcy, Darcy, Darcy. Falling in love with Darcy and making love with Darcy. Through Logan’s eyes he watches Darcy dishevel and disintegrate in the future, falling apart from the stress that she cannot bear. Her mind is broken; she is emotionally handicapped to Logan. Charles sympathizes with both Logan’s pain and Darcy’s, and now he sees why Logan dismissed her from the room. Now he understands Logan’s strange behavior and connection to the young woman. Guilt fills him at the thought, and looking at Logan’s most recent memories, he is surprised by how tangible his pain is. “You poor, poor man.” He pities. 

Logan dismisses that as well. Pity is of no use to him. He did not want Charles to see that. He didn’t even want to acknowledge that right now. “Look past me.” He abruptly orders.

“No! I don’t want your suffering! I don’t want your future!” Charles shouts louder and louder in Logan’s face.

Surprisingly, he does not react in anger. He is channeling the inner Darcy he once knew. “Look past my future.” He commands, “Look for your future.” He senses when Charles starts to focus again. “That’s it.” He encourages, “That’s it. That’s it.” He repeats.

~ In the Future ~

The deeper Charles goes into the rabbit hole that is Logan’s mind filled with so many long years’ worth of memories, the more lost he becomes. A distant voice calls to him, trying to guide him out. It is not the voice of Logan that softly repeats, “That’s it.” The voice is not one of the faded ones from the memories either. No, it is a familiar feminine voice that whispers with all the allure of a siren, “This way, Charles. This way.”

Following the voice because what other choice does he have, Charles wakes to find himself in the future, lying down in Logan’s position on the stone slab. Above his face, a wilder Darcy hovers anxiously above him, staring right into his eyes. At first he thinks that she doesn’t see him, but then she smiles right at him. “Charles.” She greets warmly.

“Darcy.” He replies. “I am so sorry–”

Swiftly she cuts him off. “No, Charles. It is fine. I have forgiven you in my own time. I do love Logan, though. Just as you love Erik.” Before Charles can protest or say anything else, she continues, “You need someone else right now. You don’t need me. Go to him.” Turning to her right, she nods at something in the distance. 

Charles follows her stare and stands and walks towards the people. He looks around the room and sees Darcy went back to staring down at Logan. Her forgiveness gave him a calmness that wasn’t there before. It meant so much to him. There was a girl, Kitty, kneeling at Logan’s head, and a young bearded man at her side, Bobby, tending to her bleeding wounds. There is an old man standing, and an old man sitting in a wheelchair. Going out on a limb, Charles hazards a guess that the one he must speak to is the one in the wheelchair. Carefully he approaches the bald man who looks as though he were meditating with his eyes closed. Suddenly, the bald man speaks to him. “Charles?”

All he can do is smile. “Charles.” He isn’t just agreeing. He is greeting the bald man in the wheelchair. The man in the wheelchair is himself, and he opens his eyes and looks straight at his younger self. Before he speaks, the one with hair continues to talk, “So this is what becomes of us?” He glances around at the gloomy temple cave. “Erik was right. Humanity does this to us.”

“Not if we show them a better path.”

“You still believe?”

“Just because someone stumbles, loses their way, it doesn’t mean they’re lost forever. Sometimes we all need a little help.”

“Oh, I’m not the man I was. I opened my mind and it almost overwhelms me.”

“You’re afraid,” the Professor wisely informs him and then he whispers to Charles as if it were a secret, “and Cerebro knows it.”

“All those voices,” Charles starts to cry, “So. Much. Pain.”

The Professor frowns. “It’s not their pain you’re afraid of. It’s yours, Charles. And as frightening as it may be, that pain will make you stronger. If you allow yourself to feel it, embrace it, it will make you more powerful than you ever imagined. It’s the greatest gift we have, to bear their pain without breaking, and it’s born from the most human power: Hope.” He shows him a vision of what else there is to come before all this, before the Sentinels. It is of his young mutant students at the X-Mansion. They are happy. It is a simpler time. “Please, Charles, we need you to hope again.” 

~ In the Past ~ 

With that final bit of advice, Charles withdrew from the future and from the memories and from Logan’s mind completely. Logan feels him leave, unaware of what exactly happened, even unaware of Darcy in his mind. “Find what you were looking for?” He rhetorically asks his old friend. Just then the power comes back on, and Logan sits up and stands to his full height once more.

Hank and Darcy reappear shortly after that. Darcy still looks upset, but both of them look curious if not a bit suspicious at what had happened between Charles and Logan. Hank walks over to them. “Power’s back on.” He informs them of the obvious.

Charles stares off into space, not looking at anyone except Logan who wears a serene expression on his face. Easily he deflects Darcy’s feeble attempts at poking in his mind. “Yes. Yes it is.” The Professor is back.


	15. Clock's Ticking

~ In the Future ~

Kitty is nearly dead asleep on her knees, eyes closing to slits as she moans softly to herself at bearing the pain while still concentrating on keeping Logan in his place in the past. Reluctantly, Darcy has been drawn away to discuss this situation with the others. Naturally, Kitty’s boyfriend Bobby was very concerned for his girlfriend’s health. So much so that he would risk endangering the mission. “She’s lost too much blood. She can’t keep going like this.”

“We have no choice, Bobby.” Magneto murmured thickly to him.

Bobby looked between the men and Darcy who all looked sympathetic but uncompromising on their stance. He started to go back to Kitty. “We can wake him up.” 

“No!” protested the Professor too loudly. At a more quiet volume, he continued, “They need more time.” At the confused look the others, excluding Darcy, gave him, he continued wearily, “I have had a glimpse into the past. If we wake Logan now, we may set off an even darker course.” He reiterated with feeling, “They need more time.”

They all exchanged looks with one another before nodding in agreement. Bobby returned to Kitty’s side and morphed his hands into their ice sculpture form. He pressed them into the scratches that dripped with blood, soaking through the rags he had placed there to staunch the flow and hold the pressure. Kitty only sighed at the contact, shaking slightly as she drew in another deep breath. Bobby didn’t like this, but it was as Magneto said. He had no choice.

Darcy climbed back on the stone slab with Logan, cuddling into his side. She carefully placed her head on his chest in such a way that her ear was directly over his heart. In this position she could hear the breath whoosh in and out of his lungs and the blood steadily pump through his veins and his strong heart’s steady beating. It all calmed her enough that she fell into a light sleep. Her lover would be fine without her guidance for now.


	16. Time's Running Out

~ In the Past ~

Once again hooked back up to Cerebro, Charles confidently and quickly finds Raven and starts talking to her, trying to convince her to just stop running and come back home. His convictions on murder were very strong. While he did that, the others watch, though Logan kept sending glances in Darcy’s direction every once in a while. It was very distracting for her. Finally, she addresses the problem. “Do I have cum on my face?”

Unsurprised by the drastic turn she took as he was familiar with it, Logan replied honestly, “No.”

“Do you want to cum on my face?”

Now that question he knew had no answer. Silence was golden, so as good as gold it should work, right? But, no. It did not. “If you want to cum on my face,” she fiercely whispered to him, “Then you ask me. You don’t just stand there and stare at me all day. Your eyes aren’t going to strip me naked.” 

No, but his hands have done that before. This Darcy is not his Darcy, though her flirting methods are very similar. Was she actually flirting with him with intention, though? Or was she just being her friendly Darcy self? What about Charles and Erik? Logan shifts uneasily at the thought, and tunes back in long enough to see that Charles, for all his talking, is getting nowhere. “Shut her down, Charles. Get in her head.” He offers.

Addressing Logan, Charles admits to him with frustration, “She’s not letting me in. I’m barely holding on. I’m not strong enough as of yet.” In a last ditch effort he tries something else, and still the others continue to observe his failing efforts. 

“It was a good try.” Darcy comforts as Charles carefully takes Cerebro’s helmet off his head, careful not to get any of his long brown hair caught it in. Again she places her hand on his shoulder, and Logan quickly speaks so as to not focus on that little detail. He can’t think about Darcy when there is a mission at hand.

“Where is she?”

Charles’ answer is a chuff of laughter, “She’s in an airport, boarding a plane.”

A little impatient, Logan prods further. “A plane to where?”

Thinking back, Charles recollects what he remembers seeing her ticket. “Washington, D.C.”

Hank, getting a little antsy, interrupts them. “Alright, guys. There’s something I need to show you.” He leads them back upstairs to his room where he’s hooked up TV sets to old looking computers. An episode of Star Trek is playing on one, and for a moment or two it captivates Darcy. “This is the system I designed to record any news about Paris, over all three networks and PBS.” Hank explains to them as he takes a seat at one of the monitors.

Sarcastically Logan comments, “All three? Wow.” That pulls Darcy’s attention back to the present situation at hand, and she chuckles. 

Not understanding what Logan means, judging by the indention in his brow, Hank just amiably agrees, “Yeah. And PBS.” Playing some recording footage of a news report he showed them, he politely asked, “Look what I found.” 

The News Reporter informed them: “Tomorrow in front of the White House, the President will make his announcement. He’ll be joined by Secretary of Defense Laird and has even sought the help of renowned scientist Doctor Bolivar Trask, his special adviser to combat this mutant issue. The White House has asked…” Hank stops the recording.

“Raven doesn’t realize that if she kills Trask at an event like that with the whole world watching…” Charles trailed off.

Logan finished his thought, “Then I came a long way for nothing.”

Hank just contributes more bad news. “And there’s more bad news. I saw the report; they found traces of her blood in Paris. For all we know, they already have her DNA, which is all they’d need…”

Again Logan finished someone else’s sentence, “To create the Sentinels of the future.”

Ever the scientist himself, Hank started, “Now there’s a theory,” Darcy sighed as she knew what this know-it-all tone of voice meant. She herself has used it many times to crush others’ silly hopes and day dreams. “In Quantum Physics that time is immutable. It’s like a river. You can throw a pebble into it, create a ripple, but the current always corrects itself. No matter what you do, the river just keeps flowing in the same direction.”

Charles and Darcy deflated a little at this information, but Logan just wasn’t getting it. It was too much science mumbo jumbo shit for him to handle on top of all this time travel shit. “What are you trying to say?”

Hank summed it up, “What I’m saying is what if the war is inevitable? What if she’s meant to kill Trask? What if this is just simply who she is?” He looked saddened by the thought at least. 

Darcy does not look surprised, but Charles just then remembers the words his older self just shared with him a couple of moments ago. “Just because someone stumbles,” he quotes, “loses their way,” The other look at him with interest. “doesn’t mean they’re lost forever.” He smiles to himself, and his smile makes Darcy smile. Her smile doesn’t make Logan smile, however. He actually frowns. “No, I don’t believe that theory, Hank. And I cannot believe that that is who she is. Ready the plane, we’re going to Washington.” Nobody questions what he says. They just go with it. It’s time to put a stop to this shit.


	17. Tick Tock Promises

On the jet again, Charles anxiously rubs at his legs as if that could put the feeling back in them. His legs weren’t asleep, though, so his efforts were fruitless. He could barely feel his own grip on his own leg. In the cockpit, Hank was piloting. In the back Logan watched the Professor a bit curiously. Darcy was looking on as well, her amber-orange eyes sad and regretful. Eventually, Logan couldn’t bear the silence anymore. “You alright?” He lamely asked, knowing the true answer.

Charles looked up at him. “Getting there.” He kept rhythmically squeezing his thighs with his hands, looking back down at his lap.

“Whatever happens today,” Logan continued without any further preamble, “I need you to promise me something.” He searched for the words, but it was hard to do in front of Darcy. There were on a plane, though. So it isn’t like he could just send her away again. Perhaps she needed to hear this as well so she could help Charles do this. “You looked into my mind and you’ve seen a lot of bad, but you’ve seen the good, too. The X-Men.” 

Both Charles and Darcy looked curious. Their last experience with X-Men and as X-Men was really more like being an Avenger. They had one mission together that ended in tragedy and failure and death and near nuclear destruction. That had broken them up. “Promise me you’ll find us. Use your power, bring us together, guide us, lead us. Storm, Scott, Jean.” Logan briefly glanced at Darcy and then cut his eyes away again. “Jane, Forge, so many others. Remember those names. There’s so many of us. We will need you, Professor.”

Feeling the pressure, Charles looked to Darcy for help. She nodded at him encouragingly and smiled at him softly. That was all he needed to see. Darcy didn’t even have to speak into his mind for him to have all the guidance he needed to say, “I’ll do my best.”

“Your best is enough. Trust me.” Logan’s eyes sidled back over to Darcy at that, and she started at him with interest and fascination. He captivated her in a wonderful way. She loves a challenge after all.

~ In the Future ~

Outside of the stone monastery, Warparth stood guard with many others: Storm, Bishop, Peter, Jane, Blink, and Sunspot. In the distance he spotted something and finally noticed what it was. It was pods carrying the Sentinels to their location. Quickly, he warned the others, “There’s twelve carrier inbound, ten miles!”

Inside of the stone monastery, the Professor mentally heard of the commotion outside. He turned to his old friend Magneto and informed him briefly, “They found us.”

Magneto looked at Logan’s unconscious body, which Kitty is still linked to, and then walked out without a word of comment. 

On the stone slab, Darcy woke from her quick cat nap, also hearing what was happening outside, though she couldn’t translate what it meant until Charles told them. Sitting up, she looked down at Logan and dived right in. She had to be there; she had to know what was going to happen next. This is the beginning of the end.


	18. Now or Never

~ In the Past ~

At the White House, thousands of people gathered. They’ve come from all over the world to witness history, along with news crews from at least fifty different countries. Logan, Charles, Darcy, and Hank were here to change history from ever happening. Raven was here to make history happen. Erik was coming here just to steal the show. At the security everyone is being checked through a metal detector. Hank wheels Charles through, and Charles throws up his hands, unsurprised when the detector beeps at his wheelchair. He is wearing his sunglass – very inconspicuous. A ticket man approaches him. “Can I see your invitations, please?”

Charles peaks out from behind his sunglasses at the ticket man. “Yes, you may.” He uses his telepathic power to make the ticket man believe that he and the others have tickets, obvious to the other mutants when he briefly touches his fingertips to his temple, recognizing the iconic move for what it was. “These two men and the woman are with me.” He informs the ticket man imperiously.

The ticket man’s face is completely blank now. He motions ahead. “You can go ahead.” He informs them in a flat voice.

“Thank you.” Charles thanks him as Hank wheels him off. Behind them Logan dropped off his sunglasses at the basket at the request of the security so as to not set off the machine, and then he takes a breath before he steps through the metal detector. He hesitates when it doesn’t beep, and then smiles to himself at the realization that he doesn’t have his adamantium skeleton yet. That would happen sometime in the future.

Darcy pushes at his back behind him. A bit surprised, though not exactly annoyed, he turns around and looks at her. She smirks flirtatiously. “You forgot your sunglasses, baby.” Tucking his sunglasses in his shirt, she stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Logan turned to try and catch her mouth, an instinctual reaction from years of doing this with her ingrained so deep into the fiber of his being as a die-hard habit, but Charles’ voice stops him.

The voice calls back, “Logan! Darcy!” Logan wants to groan with frustration, but Darcy goes skipping off after Charles. Looking back over her shoulder at him, she shakes her rear and giggles, flipping her long black hair in his direction. Instead of groaning, he smiles. Maybe she can be his Darcy after this.

Hank had rolled Charles over to sit by other men in wheelchairs so as to be less suspicious. The majority of the men were veterans, so they should be able to blend in seamlessly with few questions asked. However, one of them did ask Charles, “How did that happen?” The other handicap veteran motioned to Charles’ chair.

“Friendly fire.” Charles wasn’t exactly lying. Darcy put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“That’s the worst kind isn’t it?” The man asked without needing an answer.

“Yeah,” was Charles’ brief reply. Darcy’s hand rubbed his shoulder lightly.

“At least she stayed with you.” The man added with an appraising glance up and down Darcy’s body. Then he quickly looked away.

Darcy guiltily withdrew her hand from Charles’ shoulder with a snatch, not caring so much as what the man’s eyes said as much as she cared about what his mouth actually said. It hurt her and Charles both. Charles looked up at her. “Yeah,” He repeated numbly, not a hint of accusation in her voice. She looked away, catching Logan’s eye. Then he looked away.

Finally they started to scan the crowd for Raven. Charles used his power to try and find her out of one of the many gathering in front of the White House waiting for the President to give his speech. Darcy used her power as well. With his hand held to his temple, Charles informed them, “Haven’t found her yet, but she has to be here.”

 

The other telepath with them did not have to hold her hands to her temples. She just squinted into the sun at the people gathering around them, a huge audience sitting and standing before the stage with the seal of the White House. Darcy heard the jumbled thoughts, deciphered the voices, and then quickly discarded them when they did not match Raven’s. It was not necessarily a lengthy process, but that didn’t mean it was fun either. When one woman’s conscience had a loud voice that firmly stated, “I’m pregnant,” surprised Darcy, she had to pull herself back in and collect herself. Her thoughts had scattered, and she started needlessly worrying. What if something was to happen and Raven would accidentally hurt this lady, like by shooting her by mistake? It was a nerve-wracking thought that made Darcy stop surface scanning the crowd in favor of making a plan of action for a worst case scenario. Her unconscious movement to shield her stomach tipped Logan off that she wasn’t following Charles’ example.  
He cleared his throat. “What’s the matter with you? Are you sick?” His voice was gruff and the words came out rougher than the tone of concern he intended. This is ridiculous. They were happily in love in the future, comfortable around each other. Why was he acting so strangely around her now? Can you have a crush on your future girlfriend or …?

She started, surprised out of her inner musing. “What?” Darcy turned to look at him and on the way caught Hank’s eye. When he saw that she caught him staring, he quickly looked away. Then she finally dragged her eyes up to Logan, having to squint her sun-blinded eyes through her glasses to connect with his cool shades. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

In response, Logan’s jaw tightened and ticked. He crossed his arms with her, and Darcy felt guilt. It was unusual that she should feel such an emotion with him over a simple lie, but there was something about him that she respected. There was this sense of kinship between them that she had felt before. If he’s from the future and knows her, they must have had some kind of relationship. Her assumption that he is like her has so far been on the mark. Perhaps she should open up to him a little more seriously. Maybe then she can finally be understood. Only a little unwillingly, she gave in and confessed all too easily, “I just think if anything should happen, we should try and evacuate these people.” With a careless wave of her hand that conflicted with how much her heartfelt statement showed that she cared for strangers who hated her kind, she gestured at the pedestrians and citizens gathered to assess the mutant threat.

Whatever she was expecting from Logan, was definitely not what she got. However, everything that Logan expected from her was exactly what he got. Darcy had always had a soft spot for those who couldn’t protect herself. If given the choice between saving the world and protecting the people, she would do both, but the people would come first. “Look, uh – ”

“Do not berate me. While you handle the Mystique situation, I’ll get these people out of here.”

Logan shook his head, “What I was going to say is that you are right. You should go ahead and persuade some to leave now.”

Darcy looked at him, surprised again at how supportive and sensitive he was with her when he seemed so angry and annoyed at everyone else. “You’re just a gentle giant, aren’t you?” He looked so dismayed at that and she laughed at the look on his face. “Thank you for agreeing with me, but I’m already directing people to the exit.”

Finally, she surprised him. “What?”

She gestured to the steady trickle of people heading to the exit around them. “You notice a lot more when you are aware of your surroundings.” Darcy didn’t have to say that she knew where his attention was. Logan looked briefly embarrassed, but Darcy only smiled at him and turned away.

He wanted to say something to her now, before some serious shit went down. Logan had had his words with Charles, but now he felt he could tell her. He just had to. Before he could even open his mouth, a presenter on the stage announced, “The President of the United States.” As Nixon walked up to the podium, the presidential theme music played only just softer than the sound of the slowly but surely diminishing crowd cheering. Logan ducked his head, refusing to clap for that Dick, but watching from underneath his lashes as Darcy politely clapped for Dick, ignoring him in the process.

President Nixon raised his hands, waving to his onlookers, and flashed a peace sign at his constituents. He started talking now with jowls jiggling, and the crowd quieted to listen to him. “My fellow Americans,” begins every presidential speech ever and Nixon’s is no exception to the rule, “Today, we face the greatest threat in our history: Mutants.”

At that derogatory remark, Darcy and Charles continued to search for Raven using their telepathic powers. There was nothing to listen to that they don’t already hear enough as mutant themselves. While they searched mentally, Logan and Hank scanned the crowd. All of their eyes were occupied, gazing through their sunglasses and regular eyeglasses looking for their blue mutant friend who has caused so much trouble lately. There was still time to save her soul and save them all in the process. “We have prepared for this threat. In the immortal words of Robert Oppenheimer, ‘Behold. The world will never be the same again.’” Richard ‘Dick’ M. Nixon pointed to the giant patriotic American flags behind him which unveil to reveal the Sentinels. The lingering crowd cheers, except for the remaining mutants.

~ In the Future ~

Outside of the monastery in the cold, the mutants stood guard, alert for the incoming Sentinels. Jane cracked her knuckles. Peter stood completely still in his human form, practically immune to the cold due to his Russian background. Storm patrolled the walkway with Bishop, conversely so quietly due to the tense atmosphere. Blink hovered near the door way, messing with her nails. She was under an overhang, safe from the small pieces of snow that gently drifted down on them. Sunspot deeply disliked the cold, huffing into his hands to keep warm. Every now and then he would flare of his powers, melted the snow surrounding him before it could even reach the stone ground. On top of one of the structures, Warpath stared into the distance. He looked like a gargoyle channeling the seriousness of Batman. Unblinkingly, he gazed out to the horizon and his heightened mutant senses put him on alert before anyone else. The Sentinel airships were mere dots now, but they slowly increased in their size, more foreboding than winter blizzard storm cloud. Warpath warned the others, “Here they come.” The others stiffened in brief fear before settling into their battle stance. Jane popped her shiny hook claws, and gently touched them with her fingers. She always liked to polish her blades before she bloodied them up again.

~ In the Past ~

Charles and Darcy continue to try to locate Raven. Darcy sent a few people in small crowds and couples on their way to leave to safety when she could. The thinning crowd made it easier to find Raven for Charles, apparently, because he heard her thoughts – ‘This is for you, brothers and sisters.’ – and froze her first. “Raven!” He telepathically called to her. In the guise of a Secret Service man, she was in the middle of drawing her gun when Charles held her still. Charles, with the fingers of one hand pressed to the side of his forehead, gestured to Logan and Hank. “I have her!” With his free hand he pointed in the direction that she was in.

Raven, shaking slightly with gold eyes giving away her disguise, hissed to herself aloud, “Let me go, Charles!” It looked as though she was hesitating, but there was no doubt in her mind about committing to this murder now for her fallen comrades: Azazel, Emma, Angel, Riptide and countless others she couldn’t even name because she didn’t even know them.

However, Charles only ignored her as he held her immobile with his mind. “There, see? Secret Service man left of the stage.” He picked her out in the crowd for Logan and Hank to handle. Darcy now had completely stopped her searching in favor of sending people home, back to the safety of their houses.

Logan and Hank bent down to Charles’ eye level so they could see Raven. “Got it.” Logan confirmed once he saw her at her awkward statue position close to the stage.

“Go!” Charles ordered as Logan and Hank stood up straight and pulled away. They started cutting a straight path through the crowd to Raven’s position. Darcy moved closer to Charles in his wheelchair, once again putting her hands on his shoulders. Her grip was a firm touch, both for his comfort and her own. Eagerly and anxiously she watched the tall figures of their friends move with confidence to get Raven.

Suddenly the Sentinels activated. Thinking it was part of President Nixon’s big reveal of the mutant-tracking, mutant-hunting, mutant-killing robots; Charles continued to try and reason with Raven while he held her captive. “Raven, please listen to me. We’ve been given a second chance to define who we are. Don’t do this.” He would plead on his knees if he could and if it would do any good for her.

Her only reply was, “I’m not Raven anymore.”

Hank and Logan were nearly there. They were almost upon Raven, but a guard came up to them and stopped them from walking any further, closer to the stage. “Gentlemen,” The White House Stage Guard informed them with a threat very carefully laced into his stern voice, “You cannot pass this point.” Feeling a little helpless, Hank stared past the guard at Raven, looking only slightly lovesick. Her disguise as a man was probably just a little bit off-putting for him. Logan stared past the guard and Raven to the stage where the Sentinels floated in the air, a little less menacing in their 70s form than they were in the future. He needed to get to her, so he looked over his shoulder at Charles and Darcy and begged with his eyes for a little telepathic help from their friends.

~ In The Future ~

The Sentinel pods were getting closer to the X-Men and mutants position in the monastery. Bishop and Storm were the closest ones, at the edge of the stone wall on their lonely, snowy mountain top. He turned to her, and his tone was not frightened but realistically pessimistic, “We can’t stop that many.”

“No,” Storm agreed, “But we can slow them down.” Her eyes fogged over white and she manipulated the atmospheric pressure around her to lift herself in the air.

Further back towards the temple, Jane was getting antsy. She paced like a caged wolf, ready to slice her Adamantium claws through the ruthless machines that slaughtered her poor lover. She still felt his spirit in her, full of life and energy and love, and now it fueled her anger. Jane was about to go into the berserker mode that her and her cousin were famous for in war.

~ In The Past ~

The Sentinels floated over the crowd, slowly, before finally coming to a stop. Then, quite suddenly, they start shooting at a police car. Naturally, in response, the now small crowd panics forming a mob a fear. They start to make a run for it, and it is much easier for them to escape now that so many of them had already left previously, due to Darcy’s help and guidance. It’s the chaos of a kicked over anthill, nonetheless.

At the gunfire, Charles is shocked out of his mind and he loses his hold on Raven. He had withdrawn completely until he was inside of himself once again. While he observed the crowd trample their way to safety like a stampede of wild animals, Darcy protectively curled herself over him. They were like a boulder in a river, standing the test of time by not wearing thin. With Darcy’s help he wasn’t run over, but he ignored the welcoming shelter of her arms like an open harbor for a lost little tugboat at sea. Instead he put two and two together and shouted, “ERIK!”

~ In The Future ~

Storm rises high and starts to manipulate the weather, trying to stall the Sentinels with a blizzard to knock the ships back and send them crashing down into the rocky, snowy mountain sides.

Below and behind her, Bishop shouts to her, “Storm!” He holds out his hand, gesticulating it wildly. His other hand holds his energy gun that is connected to him. Energy is required for him to fight in this battle.

Above and in front of him, she is baring her teeth in concentration. Then without any warning she electrocutes Bishop so that he can absorb the power and use it to blast red kinetic energy at the Sentinels. He gives only a small gaspy shout of pain before he absorbs the lightning bolts eagerly charging up his laser gun.

~ In The Past ~

Everyone is fleeing to safety. As soon as the ammunition started to fire from the Sentinels’ guns, the Secret Service take Nixon, Trask, and Stryker into the safe room in the White House. They are unaware that Raven is among them, having managed to blend in the crowd in her disguise.

The Secretary of Defense barked, “Take us to Defcon 3! Mr. President, we are code red. Once our air defense readies–”

Mr. President cuts him off by abruptly turning to Trask. He ignored his Secretary of Defense in favor of getting some answers out of the men responsible for the creation of those rogue robots attacking his people and wreaking havoc right on the White House lawn. “What the Hell happened out there?!”

“I will fix it!” Dr. Trask loudly reassured him, his tone angry and mustache bristling in his anger.

If Trask was angry, Nixon was absolutely furious. Instead of having a mustache to bristle, his jowls jostling like a quivering bird in strong air currents.

This was only known to Darcy who had continued to try and track Raven while Charles was so occupied by trying to search for Magneto himself. Sensing through the other men there that they were in the security bunker supposed to be used when there is the threat of a nuclear bomb, she sees the metal and immediately fears that Erik will find it faster with his magnetic powers. “Charles, I have to go confront Raven. I must leave you, but I will return.” Quickly she touches his face and his chest, checking to see if he is okay, and then she leaves, running in the direction the White House officials and Secret Servicemen Security took when they escaped into the White House. Homing in particularly on Raven’s mind to help her find her way, the closer she got the more firmly she could hold her and prevent her from doing anything stupidly rash. The blue mutant woman already had her gun drawn, she did not need to draw anymore unwanted negative attention to herself suspiciously.

~ In The Future ~

Blink used her purple portal to jump to where Bishop was charging on the bridge with Storm brewing her namesake right above them. Once Bishop was fully charged, he gave her the nod to signal that he was ready, and she created a smallish portal for him to fire into to shoot the Sentinels down at a closer range. It was a risky move, but it has been done before. The only problem was that there were never this many of them before.

The air around Storm crackled with electricity and she shot off lightning bolts in the Sentinels’ direction. However, because there were so many and her targets were rather small considering the gaping distance between them, she was not taking down very many sadly. Next she tried crafting a few tornados so as the suck the Sentinels into a funnel and smash them all against each other. After all, they were made out of a material that was supposedly strong enough to withstand a lot of their own powers. The only thing that can really penetrate a Sentinel’s hide is itself. Also, packing them close together like that made her lightning strikes more successful in frying the little bastards to shards and pieces.

In the background, Magneto concentrated on the X-Jet with his powers, activating it until it hovered in the air and then he sent in towards the Sentinels' way. He figured that it be best to destroy it against the Sentinels than let them have it or destroy it themselves. Besides, with this final mission they won’t need that anymore. There was no escape from this; that was for sure.

With Storm’s help – mainly shocking the Black Bird until it went haywire and short circuited – Magneto sent the X-Jet into the pod of sentinels to explode. When it did in a magnificently fiery display, hundreds of Sentinels were thrown down.

~ In The Past ~

Overhead of Charles, Logan, and Hank; Erik floats just above the White House and its lawn with the overly grandiose RFK Stadium as a halo. The Sentinels stop their firing at citizens and go over to join him. His cape swishes dramatically in the wind, and it is like some awful parody of Jesus returning to Earth after his death and crucifixion.

Logan looks up at the shadow that drifts over him, no longer having to avoid the bullets of the floating Sentinels in their retro state with ridiculous coloring like purple for their primary one. He squints, sunglasses gone, at Erik in the sky with his arms outspread as he orchestrates this affair. The Sentinels swarm around him protectively, the yellow eyes glowing as they loop into a circle around him before a few break off and go outwards to the circumference of the stadium in a straight path like a radius. It would have been beautiful for its coordination had it not been imprinted in his head that these machines have demonic red eyes and spiky hands instead of bullets that rip your very mutant out from under you if you use it for defense. The imagery for other observers was no less disheartening as many did not understand. What could possibly be Erik’s motive for such theatrical behavior?

Across the lawn, Darcy does not look up or behind her to see Erik. She would be able to see him soon enough, but she could not say the same for Raven or Trask soon if she did not get to where they were fast enough. By the time she got inside the actual West Wing, she was out of breath with a stitch in her side, but Mystique had not moved in all of the time that she was under Darcy’s thumb. She complained loud thoughts in her head enough, but Darcy ignored her in favor for getting there fast and being in person for Raven to talk to.

Outside bits of debris from the giant flying stadium break off and rain to the ground in descending wreckage pieces. Chairs littered the streets and parks of Washington, D.C., from the stadium’s home to Pennsylvania Avenue. Suddenly, part of a stadium light broke off and came crashing down. “Charles!” Logan shouted in warning, giving the telepath enough time to sense Logan’s meaning and try to get out of the way. Being confined to a wheelchair, he only had enough time to fall over the side out of his chair, luckily only partially pinned and trapped beneath the wreckage. The rest of the stadium came falling down after at Erik’s behest, cutting off the incoming police officers from bothering to try and come to the rescue. Once again, Erik nearly crushed Charles, but was thankfully not successful as it was never his intention to hurt or main his old friend.

~ In The Future ~

With the explosion of the X-Jet and hundreds of the Sentinels, the X-Men dropped into cover from the flying metal and plastic polyester shrapnel that whizzed and whistled through the air like bullet shards. Storm, Bishop, Blink, and Warpath were flat on the ground, covering their heads. Sunspot had time enough to duck behind a pillar for protection. Peter merely molted into his metal form that couldn’t be pierced by small fragments that only pinged off his more advanced skin.

Jane, being unaffected by general wounds, allow herself and her leather outfit to nearly be cut to ribbons. The cuts quickly healed themselves, and she didn’t even hiss at the slight sting of her skin knitting back together. By now she was use to such injuries. The slivers and scales were pushed out of her wounds and fell around her on the stone mountain top temple in a musical clatter, but she was unaffected by it all. Nothing hurt her anymore or amused her anymore. Her pain was constant, and her joy was brief, restricted mostly to getting revenge for her fallen lover Pietro by destroying as many of the Sentinels as possible. The hundreds that were destroyed brought only a brief twitch of her lips into a fleeting, grim smile. Quickly it disappeared once again.

Storm and the others climbed to their feet and came out of their cover cautiously. She called out to the others rather softly compared to the howl of the snowy mountain wind that frostily bit at their cheeks, fingers, toes, and noses before, “Is everybody okay?” They looked around at each other to see the causalities, and a soft groan brought their attention back to Magneto. He had floated in the air, believing he was safe out of habit. He had manage to freeze all the bits of metal in the air, but the Sentinels machinery was immune to his magnetism and therefore one piece of arm managed to stab him in the gut. In near disbelief he gently lowers himself to the ground and pulls out the Sentinel part, examining it morbidly. Then he drops it and clutches at his stomach wound instead to staunch the flow of blood. His battle instincts were not as they once were and everything was so much easier when everything in the world was made out of metal rather than plastic substitutions or any such artificial, synthetic creation made by man - their destroyer.

Suddenly, a Sentinel jumps from behind the walls and impales Storm from behind. It throws her dead body over the edge of the cliff. Everyone outside naturally reacts violently, but inside Charles and Darcy clutch their chests in pain mutually felt for the loss of their dear of friend. Honestly, Darcy believed that out of all of the X-Men, Storm would always be the last woman standing of all of them, fighting until the bitter end. Out of the old triumvirate, she was always the better compared to Jean and Scott. Now that she’s gone, Charles closed his dull blue eyes in grief, brow and forehead furrowing and wrinkling at the sorrow that consumed him. Darcy’s amber-orange eyes were wide open in comparison, brimming with tears that spilled over her cheeks and splashed down her face as she cried. Kitty and Bobby did not know what happened, but they could hazard a guess. Thankfully, they did not ask who died.

At Storm’s demise, the Sentinels move on and focus their attack on Bishop. Three of them focus their energy blast on him soley as their primary target, and he starts glowing red from the inside. At first he yelled in protest, “No!” That was for Storm. As his veins pulsed with pent up energy and no matter how many shots he fired at the surrounding Sentinels with his energy gun, all of the power overwhelmed him until his eyes were consumed with it. Then he screamed again in pain and fury, “Nooo!” That was for himself. With that last battle cry, he died in a fiery explosion, taking out at least those three Sentinel attackers that he had with him. 

The Sentinels continue to attack and the remaining X-Men outside leap into action. The only one who returned inside the Temple with the others was Magneto, who was injured. With what strength he had left he summoned all the metal wreckage from the X-Jet and used it to fortify the doors of the temple. Blink shot him a portal to take him inside and escape from the Sentinels. Thanks to her, he did indeed make it in to the brief safety the old Buddhist monk sanctuary could offer for now.

~ In The Past ~

Logan and Hank, partially hidden from view but definitely under Magneto’s radar, observe one of the Sentinels standing guard around Magneto himself inside the RFK Stadium surrounding the White House. A bit hesitantly, Hank begins, “I’m probably not supposed to ask this kind of thing,” Logan inwardly rolled his eyes, knowing Hank would ask anyway because he was a damn curious son of a bitch, “But in the future, do I make it?”

Without looking at him, Logan bluntly answered, “No.” His tone was not gentle and he was not going to lie, but he wasn’t going to go into detail either. A memory came to him off Hank going beserk at the conquered X-Mansion. The Sentinels blasted him to pieces until nothing but his glasses were left. Coming out of his memory, hen he chanced a look at Hank he was looking at him as if he were crazy, a bit of panic in his eyes behind his nerdy glasses. With an added hopeful note, Logan continued, “But we can change that right?” He nodded encouragingly at his old friend and sparring buddy.

Nodding in agreement, Hank whips off his glasses as he starts to turn blue and transform. As an angry Hank changed into his Beast form, Erik then finally noticed both Logan and now the Beast. He turns to the Sentinel and imperiously orders in an ambiguous type of way, “Do what you were made for.” At the order, the Sentinel turns to Logan and Hank and starts shooting at them. Erik uses this as an opportunity to try and locate the safe room where Nixon and the others would have been sequestered in for their own supposed safety. He whispers to himself as he concentrates with his eyes closed and his hand outstretched feeling for copious amounts of metal. “Where are you? Where are you?”

Meanwhile Logan tries to fight the Sentinel, but he isn’t really getting too far with it with just his bone claws. So far he was successful in just avoiding the hits rather than landing any lasting blows on his foe himself. He tried jamming said claws into the turret, which luckily jammed the gun, but he nearly got his bone claws ripped out by the root for his trouble. Eventually, Beast manages to jump on top of the Sentinel. “I got this!” He informed Logan in his growly voice. “Go!” The blue man encouraged. With his teeth he ripped out the Sentinel’s fuel line and it sprayed everywhere.

With Hank as a distraction for the metal robot, Logan stumbled away to go after the metal man himself. As he approaches Erik, Erik sees him coming once again and so starts throwing anything with metal attached to it at Logan. At first Logan dodged the first couple or two, but then he managed to fight his way through it by swiping the debris out of his face with his fists and his claws. Eventually Erik picks out a concrete block with rebars and comes up on Logan from behind with it. The rebars impale Logan’s back and then snake through his skin, wrapping through his body in an extremely painful way. He shouts and falls flat to the ground on his front, gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut. Veins were nearly popping out of his forehead and his claws were all ready popped, but the pain was immense compared to anything he had previously experienced.

~ In The Future ~

The pain in the past almost caused Logan in the future to nearly break the link with Kitty. His claws unsheathed themselves again and he shouted his pain into the room. Unlike before, he was restrained so he didn’t start slashing at the air again. That was very fortunate because there was no way that Kitty could take much more of this, especially with additional cuts and slashes.

From where Darcy was lamenting the loss of Storm, that is with her arms wrapped around Charles from behind, her head whipped around so fast at Logan’s shout that it twinged with nerve damage or something. Both her and the Professor dived in his mind for a look and Charles was horrified at Erik’s ruthlessness, “Oh, dear God, no.” He begged. Darcy couldn’t even form words. She just sobbed harder and threw herself at Logan. This was too much and she was wrong; she wasn’t ready to let go of everything in this wretched world if it meant letting go of Logan.

~ In The Past ~

Erik makes Logan rise into the air and float by magnetically pulling at the rebars imbedded in his body with his powers. The movement cause Logan to continue to shot in pain. Unmoved, Erik only tells Logan, “So much for being a survivor.” Then to Logan’s all too real horror, he throws Logan into the Potomac River.

~ In The Future ~

Logan is in extreme distress now, choking on air here as his lungs fill with water in the past. He’s drowning and it’s an awful experience he knew all too well from when he had his adamantium skeleton. If he was stuck there for too long he would be dead until someone got him out. He struggled but could not swim with the weight. He didn’t want to let anyone down, but he didn’t really have much of a choice. It was all up to them now.

Emotionally Darcy looked on. There was nothing she could do to soothe this stress because his body in the future could not save him in his past. It was all in his head and in his consciousness. The pair of lungs he had now was void of water and full of air. She was hopeless to try and ease his suffering and it pained her deeply, though not as deep as the pain he was in or the river for that matter. Instead she buried her face on his chest. What else could she do but weep? She was losing her already broken mind with the stress of this mission that she was completely useless on.

~ In The Past ~

Stumbling into the Oval Office, Darcy looked down at the Executive Seal with the eagle holding the scroll and olive branch, and then dropped to her knees tearing at the carpet with her claws. Ruthlessly, she ripped at it until she looked up and noticed the actual opening to the safe room. Rolling her eyes at her own stupidity she crawled over to it and started yanking at the metal wheel. It reminded her of the kind of porthole in a submarine.

Inside the safe room, Raven, still in her secret service man disguise, waits to attack Trask and break free of Darcy’s mental grip. Trask stares into the distance, annoyed at his machineries failure, but then suddenly he hears his small mutant locator device start beeping. He takes it out of his pocket and turns to Nixon to explain its purpose. Ominously he informs the President and the safe room at large, “One of them is in here.”

Suddenly Raven chooses at that moment to throw off Darcy’s leash – something she has learned how to do from growing up with Charles. It surprises the telepathic woman enough that she doesn’t clamp back down on her time to prevent Raven from pointing her gun at Trask to shoot. As soon as she comes down on Raven like a hammer, the security is also upon her, restraining her. They shouted, “Gun!” and held her arms down, making her drop the pistol unwillingly. The ones who aren’t physically holding her back point their own handguns at Raven, who does not break her disguise except for the tell-tale yellow of her eyes.

Surprisingly, and probably very unfortunately, her saving grace comes not from Darcy who is frantically trying to use her animalistic tiger strength to open the door, but from Dr. Bolivar Trask. “No, no, no, no!” He protests at their rough treatment of Mystique. He waves his short arms at the men nearby to get them to lower their weapons. “Don’t kill it!” Referring to her as an ‘it’ definitely means that she as an extraordinary mutant with interesting abilities is not completely safe. “I need it alive.” If Raven wasn’t so angry she would fear for her life.

Just as Darcy resorted to try and manipulate one of the Secret Service men to climb up to ladder and open the door for her, the metal beneath her claws gives a shudder. In the safe room, the floor becomes unsteady as everything jerks. From outside Darcy can hear the clicking and pinging of the metal guns being yanked from hands and holsters as they fly up to the ceiling magnetically. Erik has found them and is starting to pull the safe room out of the White House. President Nixon wildly asks, “What the Hell is happening?”

Before anyone can answer – but long enough for Darcy to climb to her feet and get out of the room – Erik pulls the safe room out of the White House and it lands on the lawn in front of him. With a yank he pulls the door off the hinges and with another strong pull of his arms and a flex of his physical and mutational muscles, he pulls one side off the giant metal cube completely. The men scramble for their weapons, but he takes them all from him and floats them in the air above his head. All of the guns are pointed at the men in the not-so-safe room. Then he turns all the live news cameras towards him, and actually starts monologuing the speech he has prepared and memorized for this occasion.

“You built these weapons to destroy us. Why? Because you are afraid of our gifts. Because we are different. Humanity has always feared that which is different. Well, I’m here to tell you, to tell the world, you are right to fear us. We are the future.

~ In The Future ~

Peter in his metal form fights the Sentinels, but too many are closing in on him to hold back. They kill Colossus by grabbing at him and ripping him into two pieces. They burn Warpath alive by holding him in their hands and dipping him into their energy beams they shoot from their face. Their deaths are horrifying and painful. Charles and Darcy can hardly bare it.

~ In The Past ~

Still in the White House, Darcy follows the trail of destruction Erik caused with the safe room to get outside. She’s panting and running, but not fast enough she fears. Too flustered and in a rush, she cannot concentrate enough to reach out telepathically to try and stop Erik in anyway. Her emotions, like desperation, have always made her useless in a fight.

Erik continues dramatically as he turns to look into each and every individual camera lens, “We are the ones who will inherit this earth, and anyone who stands in our way will suffer the same fate as these men you see before you. Today was meant to be a display of your power. Instead, I give you a glimpse,” He holds his fingers barely an inch apart, “of the devastation my race can unleash upon yours. Let this be a warning to the world.”

~ In The Future ~

Sunspot is the next one to be slaughtered by the Sentinels. He blasts them with his fire, but they close in on him none the less. One of them actually manages to cut off one of his arms and still he keeps fighting, shooting at the culprit with his flames. From behind one of them comes and impales him on its fingers that stretch out like long and curved rapier blades.

Jane’s death was surprising because she had managed to take out over a dozen of the Sentinels herself singlehandedly. She had gone into a frenzy in this fight, slashing out at them with her two hooked claws and taking many slices of her own. Jane tore the killer robots to pieces with ease and with her rage fueling her power. In berserker mode she was animalistic like a beast and her eyes never stopped glowing green with her magically energy. Her telekinetic tell-tale green glow of her magic weaved around the Sentinels and either tore them down or crushed them into nothing less than dust. Their sheer numbers and their mighty power beams were the only things that could stop her. A good number of them had to be at a distance and all simultaneously blast her with their faces. She screamed wordlessly, looking as though she were imploding rather than exploding like Bishop did. Her greenness swirled around her and zapped out at a few of the Sentinels who were close by. Her eyes faded as her flesh melted right off her adamantium bones. They kept firing at her until her metal skeleton was completely liquefied. As soon as they stopped, she hardened, and there was nothing left of Jane but shiny mishappened circle on the stone, freezing cold ground of the towering mountain top in China.

Inside the temple, Charles puts a hand over his heart. Darcy cannot stand it. Her best friend in the world, who was immortal and very much like Logan, was gone, gone, gone. “No!” She shrieked, and her hands drummed down on Logan’s chest in the shape of fists before she could catch herself. “Gone!” She said in a much quieter voice that was still a roar. Darcy stroked her hands over where she had struck Logan in her grief. In an even softer tone of voice, she bemoaned, “Dead!” Her hands climbed up Logan’s neck to cup his face, and she buried her crying face one again into his body, this time as the crook of his neck where it met his shoulder. Her sobs were muffled there at least as she allowed herself to break down completely for her friend who was so much stronger and such a survivor – now gone completely from the world.

At least she could be with her lover Pietro in the afterlife. That was a small mercy that still hurt Darcy. Hopefully she would be reunited with her friend soon, and she and Logan would be able to die together with each other. They would literally die in the other’s arms, holding on to what they love and held so dear to their hearts that they now clutch for dear life. Well, only one of them would be doing that.

~ In The Past ~

“And to my mutant brothers and sisters out there, I say this: no more hiding, no more suffering. You have lived in the shadows in shame and fear for too long. Come out and join me. Fight together in the brotherhood of our kind. A new tomorrow, that starts today.”

~ In The Future ~

The last one to die outside of the temple is Blink. The Asian mutant with the pink hair and eyes had been using her portals to turn the Sentinels powers on each other. With her teammates gone and all of the Sentinels’ attention on her, they overwhelmed her too quickly. One of them got in a lucky shot and impaled her on its pointed arm. Her mouth gaped into an o-shape as she cried out at the pain; her arms spread out and head tilted back, looking up at the snowy sky that was so beautiful and familiar to her earlier. Another one of the Sentinels joined in and also ran her through. Her portals disappeared with that blow. A third and final Sentinel shaped its arm into a point and like its comrades stabbed Blink, this time in the back. This final blow killed her, and she breathed no more and ceased to make a sound.

Inside the monastery, the wounded Magneto looks at Professor Xavier. “All those years wasted fighting each other, Charles.” He sounds so regretful, which is a natural reaction for one to have on one’s deathbed like he was. “To have a precious few of them back…” Erik trails off as he extends his hand to the Professor. Without a word Charles also reaches for Erik’s hand and they hold each other so tenderly. It is a soft and sweet moment of old friends and old lovers fully reunited at last. At least a thousand of wrongs are all righted and forgiven with unspoken but understood apologies, tacitly and telepathically given.

Suddenly they hear the explosions outside. Bobby heads towards the monastery’s entrance and uses his power to freeze the front door, all in an effort to give them more time.

Darcy stops crying long enough to lift her head and sniff miserably. Her old lovers were so in love with each other. They had a moment to say goodbye, and she was crying over Logan who couldn’t hear her. It wasn’t fair, and she knew it was stupid for her to think that in this situation where the post-apocalyptic world definitely isn’t fair to anyone – especially a mutant – but that didn’t stop her from lamenting her missing chance. Her only comfort was that she knew Logan loved her, and she knew that he knew that she loved him as well.

With that bittersweet thought, she used her hand to wipe away the wet spot of tears she left on his neck and tenderly stroked his jaw line with the other hand. In sleep he was so beautiful, and he was finally at peace now, perhaps in death’s arms already. Darcy stares at him, and her expression softens. They will be together again soon.

~ In The Past ~

From out of the safe room, Nixon comes out to approach Erik. The Secretary of Defense protests, “Mr. President! Sir!” They all move like a wave in the ocean to try and stop him, grabbing at his suit and his arms.

“Stand down!” He roughly orders, “I said stand down damn it!” The President repeated when they didn’t hear him the first time. He walks to face Erik and points at him, addressing him now. “You want to make a statement? Fine! Kill me, but spare everyone else!”  
Inside the safe room, the real Nixon looks on at his impersonator taking a stand at the man who would be their executioner.

Meanwhile, Hank in blue Beast form has been fighting with the Sentinel that Erik had ordered on him and Logan earlier. From inside a vehicle, where he had taken cover, he notices Nixon talking to Erik. Thinking fast he whips out his packet of serums in his jacket pocket and stabs himself in the leg, injecting him with all of the medicine held in each shot. The needles went in deep enough to work fairly quickly as he starts to revert back to his human form.

Erik is unmoved by Fake Nixon’s noble self-sacrifice. “Very heroic, Mr. President.” He condescendingly says in a charming tone. “But you had no intention of sparing any of us. The future of our species begins now.” All of the floating guns point directly at Nixon. A clicking noise is heard by all as they are cocked, loaded, and ready to fire at Erik’s signal.

Back at the car, the Sentinel rips off the top and goes to grab Hank. However, Hank has reverted back into his human form so the Sentinel backs off. Instead it looks across the destroyed White House lawn at Erik and Nixon. It sees them both as being mutant, and runs towards them.

Semi-aware of his surroundings enough, Erik sees him coming and directs his attention towards the robot. With an outstretched hand he pulls it apart. At that moment, the fake President takes out his plastic gun, aims carefully at the exposed bit of flesh on Erik’s neck and fires. At the sound of the gunshot, Erik turns his head back to face his victims, and the bullet grazes his neck in two spots. His hand flies up and presses against the bloody wounds, and he gasps for breath. Erik drops down to his knees at the pain and all of the guns are immediately dropped to the grassy ground. As the fake President Nixon lowers his gun, he transforms into the very blue and very naked Mystique. On his knees, Erik says to Raven, “You use to be a better shot.”

Without taking a moment to think she quips, “Trust me, I still am.” She approaches him with a limp and then knocks him out with a flexible, athletic kick of her legs. Once that is done and he is down, out cold, on the ground she turns and points her gun at the safe room at Trask who is revealed by the Secret Service men moving to shield their president.

Suddenly, everything and everyone freezes in place. Mystique sees Charles appear like a ghostly vision in the safe room directly in front of Trask in her gun’s line of sight like some saintly shield. “Get out of my head, Charles!” She shouts in frustration.

Instead of doing as she asks, Charles begs, “Raven, please, do make us the enemy today.”

Not convinced Raven argues, “Look around you, we already are!”

With a slight smile on his mouth he almost laughs, “Not all of us.”

Hank in his human form goes over to Charles, who is still lying injured under some fallen debris from the stadium. Charles acknowledges Hank’s presence and help, but continues to communicate with Raven through her mind. Out loud and in her head he tries to convince her, “All you’ve done so far is save the lives of these men. You can show them a better path.”

Shaking his head at Charles’ antics, Hank sadly suggests, “Shut her down, Charles.” He still tries to pull the metal debris off his handicapped mutant friend.

Charles looks at Hank, and this time he actually does smile. With a shake of his head, he continues on to say, indirectly addressing Hank as well, “I’ve been trying to control you ever since the day we met and look what that’s got us. Everything that happens now is in your hands. I have faith in you, Raven.” He unfreezes everyone and everything.

Raven continues to point her gun at Trask, thinking what he said over in her mind, mulling the topic as she hesitates.

~ In The Future ~

Finally the Sentinels break into the monastery using their energy power beams. The heat overcomes Bobby’s ice, and he is killed at their entrance, melted into the air and then evaporated into nothing. The Sentinels round the corner to find the Professor in his wheelchair next to a fatally wounded Magneto slouched on the floor, clutching his stomach wound that bleeds copiously. Kitty, bent over Logan’s head and sweaty, looks up at them, gasping at her pain and at the sight of them, knowing that she is dead. Darcy is the only one to not look up at their imminent approach. Instead, she still looks down at Logan’s emotionless face and fondly strokes her fingertips over his stubble.

The Sentinel who got their first stands tall and prepares to shoot its laser at them. Charles, at the sight of the light, holds up and arms to shield his face. Kitty looks on in horror, still holding Logan in the past. Erik is probably passed out or dead on the floor from his previous wound from the Sentinels. Darcy closes her eyes and presses her forehead to Logan’s. She kisses his nose and speaks into his mind, “I love you.” With that last parting gift, she knows now that she is ready to die, and is at peace with the thought.

However, none of them die, though the laser is fired and they were so close to death. Instead the monastery is now strangely and mysteriously empty. They had all just disappeared.

~ In The Past ~

It was all because of Raven. This dark path to the dangerous future started with her, and now it has ended with her making a choice. She lowers her gun to her side, and then drops it completely. The clear plastic weapon falls to the grass and bounces at her feet.

A sigh of relief rushes over the crowd.

Raven turns away from the man she had wanted to murder dead and the others in the safe room. She limps over to Erik and yanks the helmet that deflects telepathic powers off of his head. Erik remains unconscious. Tossing the helmet away, she walks away from her former lover and comrade and shouts out loud to her former friend and former brother figure, “He’s all yours, Charles.”

From where he lay trapped, Charles taps into Erik’s mind and his powers. Erik opens his eyes at the intrusion and rises up like a puppet on strings. Charles stretches his hand out into the air, a look of stern concentration on his face, and Erik mimics the movement. Through Erik’s magnetism, Charles frees himself by manipulating Erik into removing the metal bars off of him so Hank can help him out to somewhat stand, though Hank supports all of his weight. With that done, he releases him.

Now the two men can see one another from across the distance, nothing but a stretch of green springy grass between them. “If you let them have me, I’m as good as dead. You know that.” Erik reminds Charles.

“I know.”

“Goodbye, old friend.” Erik sounds sad.

With less fondness, Charles replies flatly with hidden emphasis and meaning in his diction, “Goodbye, Erik.” That is the end of that friendship and relationship for now.

Naturally, Erik is hurt. He looks at Raven for a moment, who is breathing heavily. She cocks her head at him, blinking a little, looking like a lost little puppy infatuated with him and interested in what he was thinking once again. Instead of saying anything to her, he raises his arms with just a bend of his elbows and floats away by magnetically lifting the metal armor he had crafted himself.

Raven then turns to look at Charles and Hank at Erik’s disappearance. Again, nothing is spoken between them, though she does share an intimate look with Hank at least. In fact, she almost smiles at him. He looks very sad. Before she goes to walk away, she lifts her head. She doesn’t disappear from sight until she rounds a corner around a piece of debris from the event. As soon as she is gone, Hank asks, “You sure you should have let them go?”

“Yes, I have hope for them.” Charles’ voice is all-knowing and reminiscent of the future self he had met in a mental connection earlier. “There’s going to be a time, Hank, when we are all together.” He assures his friend.

At last Darcy appears, and seeing that Erik and Raven are both gone, but everyone in the safe room appear to be okay, she approaches Charles and Hank. Assisting Hank with Charles, she reads both of their minds to see what she had missed, and found she only had one question, “What about Logan?”

At the bottom of the Potomac River lies Logan, not breathing, his eyes closed, no longer struggling.


	19. Into the Future

~ In The Future ~

Logan wakes up and opens his eyes to see his old room, familiar to him enough that he recognized it to be the one he had at the school in Charles’ mansion. His alarm clock is a hologram that plays a haunting song. “The first time, ever I saw your face…” At least this time he didn’t wake up naked again.

He rises, groggy, confused. Logan wonders just how much he changed with his seemingly successful trip to the past, and stumbles over to his door. The bookshelves in his room are full with their namesakes, but other than that he sees no other personal items. He can't help but wonder... 

Alone, he pushes the door open and sees that he isn't along. A school bell rings and he watches a young boy with a white streak in his hair like a skunk leave his own room be had across the hall from Logan and walk down the hall with his schoolbooks under his arm. He is so young, and Logan watches the student go, baffled.

For that he is awarded with the sight of Bobby leaning against a doorframe, casual and young and carefree, talking to whoever is inside the room. Rogue steps out and takes his hands into her own gloved ones. She still has the white streak in her hair and his old dog tags around her neck. The only major difference he could detect was that she wasn’t dressed all in black like a goth as she was before, but instead she had on a stylish green jacket. 

Well, she certainly looked happier at any rate. They are completely at ease with each other and in love with one another. Logan mumbles her name, “Rogue.” The young couple glances over at him where he still stands inside his doorway, and Rogue looks a little embarrassed. She flips her hair at him as her version of a greeting and a parting before she walks off with her boyfriend Bobby, hand in hand and in love.

Leaving his room, Logan wanders down the hall in shock, halfway following after Rogue and Bobby. He hears familiar voices, and peeks into one of the rooms he was about to pass. He sees Kitty teaching a full class of mutant children with Peter. She lectures, holding a hologram in her hands, and her much taller boyfriend watches her steadily. The technology here may be amazing, but the room’s occupants were more so. It is obvious without any need of a show of affection that they are just as in love as Bobby and Rogue.

He looks away, not wanting to disturb them with his presence or disrupt the lesson and feels a cool and sudden breeze hit him. He knows at once that it is Pietro; he doesn’t even need to see the kid to know it was in fact him. His guess is confirmed to be true when a flustered Jane comes into view. “Did you see Pietro? Nevermind, silly question, I know. Hey, class has started! Why aren’t you there?” Before Logan could say a word, Pietro appeared at Jane’s side.

They were another couple deeply in love. Jane was happier than when Logan last saw her, and that had to do with the silver guy at her side. Pietro’s youthful face was framed by silver hair, shorter and slightly curlier at the ends than when Logan had last seen it when Pietro was alive in the reality he once knew to be true. This Pietro was so full of life though, and laughs as he teases Jane, pulling his hair back in a low pony tail. His sparkly black eyes are lively and there is a dusting of silver stubble gracing his jaw. He’s in an athletic outfit: black sweat pants, upscale and stylish sneakers with the fat tongues and double-knotted laces, and a black under-armor style shirt with the X-Men logo on it in silver. Jane tilts her head back to look Pietro with a smile curving her lips. Her hair is in pretty ringlets about her sweet, freckled face; and it tumbles all the way over her shoulders, contrasting nicely with her professional green dress. Logan’s lips move to shape his cousin’s name, “Jane.” They completely ignore him, and walk off together, arm in arm and in love.

At their leaving, Logan needs a moment. He leans against the wall, overcome with emotion at all the happiness and love around him, but he still feels lost in such a way, as if he were missing his own happy ending. Before he could dwell on that thought further, there is suddenly a puff of blue smoke in front of him and Kurt is there. “Guten morgen, Logan.” He straightens his bowtie and dusts off his sweater vest. As he runs his fingers through his hair, he looks down the hall and Wanda is rounding the corner, trying to catch up. She clutches thick tomes to her chest, hair pulled back artfully into an elegant up-do, and dressed in simple black dress with a red scarf wrapped around her neck and tasteful red boots. Wanda greets Logan with a smile, and then she and Kurt continue on their way down the hall before Logan can even get the name, “Kurt,” out of his mouth.

At their disappearance, Logan is greeted with the sight of someone he once saw die. An older Hank in his furry blue Beast form and awful yellow plaid suit is jauntily walking down the hall with a book in his hand. He greets Logan with a friendly smile and a laugh as he passes him, “Good morning, Logan. Late start.”

Logan didn’t say anything as he watched his old friend walk off chuckling. In fact, he even smiled himself. Then he started down the stairs, students passing by him. At the bottom of the stairs he notices Storm, all in white like the angelic being she is, talking to some students encouragingly, “Have a good lunch. Good job.”

The student thanks her, “Thank you!” When one leaves, another one comes up to Storm and she greets him as a motherly and maternal mentor would, with an arm around his shoulder and a question, “Hey, how was your Spanish test?” She herds her student away, not noticing Logan.

The man only says to himself, “Storm.” Saying their names solidified that this real and parts of what he knew to be true never happened. Once he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he turned to go to the Professor’s office and he saw someone he so desperately wanted to see and was secretly looking for all along. He just didn’t even know it yet. “Darcy,” sighs, so in love with her.

Darcy stood at the entrance to Professor Xavier’s office. He knew it was her from the back firstly from her blue pencil skirt and white blouse and secondly from her long straight black hair that flowed down to touch the small of her back. His fingers knew well the muscle memory of combing through her hair and touching her spine underneath. Her posture was professional enough, hands on her hips as she shook her hair out, and he could tell she was being feisty as he recognized the move. He watches her shift her weight from one foot to the other, in flats so she is definitely way shorter than him, and smiles at her. Entranced by the sight of his old lover there in all her glory, he swiftly approaches her. “Darcy,” He repeats louder for her to hear.

She glances over her shoulder at him, “Hello there, Logan.” As he nears, she continues, “Is everything fine now?” Darcy wraps her arm around his middle and leans into him, and with that comfortable motion he knows that she is his.

He leans down as catches her mouth with his own, passionately kissing her. She allows this, kisses back even, and finally he breaks it off. “You’re here,” His eyes open and gaze down at her beautiful face that he adores, “with me.” His voice sounds raw with vulnerability.

The woman senses this in him, and tenderly reaches up to cup his jaw in her hand. Her claws gently trace over his stubble as she questions his motives for this unexpected show of affection when she knew he should be elsewhere and after their fight the night before, “Where else would I be when I love you so much, my love.” Her thumb traces over the lips she just kissed, and she watches his mouth as she asks in a much lower voice, “Did you have a nightmare after our argument? I’m sorry that I hurt you. I was wrong to do that.”

Logan didn’t know that they fought, but he didn’t care. That wasn’t his past to do deal with. Instead of answering her, he goes to touch her cheek to pull her face back to his for another kiss, but they are interrupted by a throat clearing in the background.  
Looking up he sees Scott and Jean are standing there glaring at them both. Scott looks upset at the public display of affection, distinctly uncomfortable at the tenderness of the sweet moment, while his wife - yes, they were married, he could tell by the matching gold bangs gleaming on the ring fingers of their left hands - looks more or less pissed off for some reason or another. Their sense of style hasn’t changed in this universe. Jean looked like a crayola in all red with stripper stiletto heels, and Scott had an ugly brown sweater with his trademark sunglasses tinted red on the lenses from his constant eyebeam energy. “Woah, easy pal.” He starts to berate them.

“Take your lovey-dovey face sucking somewhere else!” Jean hisses like a harpy. Her fake red hair is twisted into a pale imitation of what Wanda or Jane or even Darcy could pull off in a much better way with their youthful appearance. “You’re in our way!”  
Amused more than annoyed at them interrupting his loving reunion with his woman, he snorts, “Well, some things never change. Good to see you, Scott.” He nods his head at them both. “See you later, Jean.” Guiding Darcy by her elbow to move with him, they step into the office and out of the doorway, therefore out of the Summers’ way.

“Uh huh.” Jean sounds disbelieving as she marches off with an obnoxious click-clack of her heels on the tile.

“Okay.” Scott doesn’t know what to think as he follows after his wife who is obviously in some kind of snit of another. Then again, when isn’t she?

With them gone, Darcy gently asks, “Logan, baby, is everything alright with you?” She sounds so concerned and Logan knows she is sincere because she is his lover.

“Yeah, darling.” He assures her. When she continues to look at him beseechingly with care, he continues to soothe over her nerves, “Yeah, Genevieve, I think I am. Everything is okay, darling.”

She visibly relaxes, and finally smiles at him. It takes his breath away; it has been so long since he has seen his girl smile like that – it was the smile she had when everything was perfect, in the golden and silver years before the Sentinels. He didn’t want to think of that now though, and was saved from having to do that by her addressing him, “That’s great. So I will see you later?” She flirtatiously insinuates and before he can assure her that she can in fact expect something good from him with more than a nod she adds, “Great. Well, I have to go supervise my class now.” Darcy kisses his hairy cheek goodbye, and he gives her derriere a love tap before she exits the office.

Finally, Logan turns to the man who owns this office and mansion. “You did it.”

“Did what?” Professor Charles Xavier was sitting behind his antique and classic wooden desk in his hovercraft wheelchair, a relic he also had in Logan’s other future. He closed the book he was reading in his hand with a snap and throws it down on his desk as he looks up at Logan, giving him his full attention where before he seemed to have ignored all the previous exchanges and everyone else as well. “Logan, don’t you have a class to teach?” He starts to move his chair from out behind his desk.

“A class, to teach?” Logan questions. God, he hoped it was his old job and not art class.

“Ay,” Charles sounded jollier than Logan remembered him to be before the Sentinel Program. He also remembered that the man always wore sapphire blue suits rather than emerald green. “History.” He finishes reminding Logan.

“History?” Logan repeats again like a parrot. Thank God. Isn’t that choice in class subjects ironic for him now though? “Actually, I could use a little help with that.”

Charles asks for clarification, “Help with what?”

Logan shifts a little, acting mischievous from the giddiness that comes with victory. Lightly he supposes, “Well, pretty much everything after 1973.” In a much more serious and sincere tone of voice he hints further, “I think the history I know is a little different.”

The Professor gives him a knowing look and leans forward in his chair. “Welcome back,” he whispers.

“It’s good to be back.” Logan quips, “It’s good to see you, Charles. It’s good to see everyone.” Especially one in particular  
.  
“Well,” the Professor looked wry, “I had a promise to keep. You and I have a lot of catching up to do.” He tilts his head. "I imagine Hank and Darcy would like to know you're back. After all they were privy to your time-traveling back to 1973."

Privately, Logan though he had fifty years of lovemaking to make up to Darcy. Fifty years of lovemaking and falling in love and recreating dates they both missed in their alternate timelines and relearning their relationship and how to love each other. “Yeah…” He agrees, meaning more than what it means.

Earnestly and eagerly, Professor Xavier asks, “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Logan’s previously happy expression drops. His brow furrows and he answers, “Drowning.”


	20. The Past

~ In The Past ~

Thanks to the help of divers, Logan, looking like a drowned rat, is lifted out of the Potomac River and placed on a boat. On the boat, someone hidden behind a newspaper reads the headlines “Mutant Saves President and Cabinet” and “Trask Arrested For Selling Military Secrets”. 

One of the cops assisting in this looks over Logan and hesitantly asks, “Isn’t he…?” Logan’s eyes start to flutter and the cops are all surprised. The cop that had spoke before speaks again in shock, “Oh, he’s alive!” Logan opens his eyes completely and coughs up water.

 

Another man on the boat, a Major William Stryker, smiles at the sight, not surprised in the least. Another of the cops asks the man, “What do you want us to do with him, Major Stryker?”

Major Stryker turns away, working his jaw, and rubbing his fingers together conniving-like. “I’ll take him from here.” Behind Stryker, the person holding the newspaper folded it up neatly and lowered it to her lap. It is Darcy, who is also smiling and she waves her hand at the men on the boat, and they all drop to the deck, fast asleep.

~

The past, a new and uncertain world. A world of endless possibilities and infinite outcomes. Countless choices define out fate. Each choice, each moment, a ripple in the river of time. Enough ripples and you change the time. For the future is never truly set.


End file.
